William Shepard Bryan was born 1827 in New Bern, Craven County, NC the 4th of 14 known children (8 boys/6 girls) born to the Hon. John Heritage Bryan and his wife, Mary Williams Sheperd/Shepard.

He was the paternal grandson of James D. Bryan (1769-1806) and Rachel Heritage (1783-1842); and gr-grandson of Capt. John Council Bryan (1742-1807) and Elizabeth Oliver (ca. 1742-1781), all of New Bern, Craven County, NC.

William was about 12 years old when the family moved to Raleigh in 1839, where his father became a prominent Whig congressman and Episcopal layman, representing NC in the House of Representatives (1825-1829). William was not a large physical boy, and suffered a good deal from ill health throughout his life, but he had a brilliant mind. Yet, he was just a little over age 14 when he entered the freshman class at UNC, where he graduated with honors in 1846, then read law with his father until he received his masters from UNC in 1850; whereupon he removed to Baltimore and was admitted to the bar in 1851 and entered upon the practice of law in that city.

He was at first without acquaintance or influential association, and his progress for a time was very slow. But he devoted himself to his studies diligently, made few acquaintances and spent very little time in social pleasures. He gradually won a position for himself, and during the December term, 1853, made his first appearance before the Supreme Court of the United States as associate counsel in the case of Eyre v. Potter, reported in 15th Howard. In the courts of Maryland, he argued many cases, among them the noted one of Jones v. Jones, reported in 36 Maryland. In this case the Court of Appeals decided unanimously that slave marriages were valid and that the issue thereof, born in slavery, could inherit, after becoming free, just as other free persons. This decision reversed a settled practice founded on an opinion given
by Daniel Dulany, in 1767, and reported in 1 Harris & McHenry's Reports.

William was 30 years old when he married on October 1, 1857 to 26-year old Elizabeth Edmondson Hayward, daughter of William Hayward & Elizabeth Edmondson of Easton, Talbot County, MD. They would become parents to 4 known children:

* William Sheperd Bryan, Jr. (1859-1914)
* Elizabeth "Bessie" Hayward Bryan (1862-1951)
* George Pettigrew Bryan (1865-1914)
* Carryl Harper Bryan (1868-1927)

During the Civil War, William's family supported the Confederacy; and his sympathies were with the South, so it must have been difficult for him to have remained in the North during war. (Although Baltimore was thought by many as being a Southern city, not Northern.) He lost his brother, Capt. George Pettigrew Bryan (1841-1864), who was killed during a cavalry charge against Union forces outside Richmond in August 1864. Another brother, John Heritage Bryan, Jr., was among a group of Confederates who left the country in disgust after the war and resettled in Brazil, where he died. (A memorial to him was raised in City Cemetery, Raleigh, by his wife and children.)

Judge Bryan was a life long Democrat, and was presidential elector in 1876. In 1883 he was elected, as his party's candidate, to the position of associate judge of the Court of Appeals, for a term of fifteen years. Throughout his term on the bench he was constant in his attendance on his duties, and delivered the opinion of the court of independent thought, some of his most important opinions have been those in which he dissented from the majority of the court.

William S. Bryan was widowed in March, 1898 when his wife of 41 years died at age 67. She is presumed buried here.

Nine months later, when his term of office ended, in November, 1898, he had passed the age limit fixed by the State Constitution for further judicial service, and retired to private life. He lived for a time with his married daughter in Annapolis, but later returned to Baltimore, where he lived with his son, William Jr., then attorney general for the State of Maryland.

On his retirement from the bench, a pleasant correspondence passed between him and the Court of Appeals, and a letter couched in highly complimentary terms was sent him, signed by over two hundred members of the Baltimore bar. From this letter is quoted the following deserved tribute:

"During your long term, you constantly exhibited the qualities which inspire confidence and command admiration
and respect. Your numerous opinions show laborious research, discriminating analysis, and strong and clear statement and explanation of the questions involved, which justly entitle them to rank amongst the best in our judicial records, while your relations with the bar were marked by an habitual courtesy and patience, which it is a pleasure to us to recall."

Judge Bryan died in Baltimore on December 9, 1908. He had survived his wife 10 years, and was 81 years old when he died.

As for his children, William Shepard Bryan had a brilliant career in the law, but never married. He died in 1914, just six years after his father's passing.

Son, George Pettigrew Bryan, married in 1892 to Camilla Matilda Tyler of Hartford, CT and had a long career with the Erie Railroad. He traveled back and forth to Baltimore from his home in Elmira, NY to be at his brother's bedside (William S. Bryan Jr), to whom he was very close. George died less than 2 months after William Jr. passed, and many say it was from extreme exhaustion and grief over the loss of his brother. George left a widow and 2 children, Camilla F. Bryan (b. 1899) and Louse F. Bryan (b. 1903). He died in Elmira, Chemung Co, NY, but is final resting place is not known by this researcher.

Youngest son Carryl Harper Bryan became a druggist and married Cornelia Rathbone Boykin, daughter of Dr. Thomas Jackson Boykin originally from Sampson County, NC, who ran a large wholesale drug business in Baltimore. They never had children, and Carryl died in 1927 in Anne Arundel County, MD.

Daughter, Bessie Hayward Bryan, married Dennis Claude of the distinguished Claude family of Annapolis. They had 3 children: Elizabeth Harwood Claude; Margaret H. Claude (1894); and Lt. William Shepard Bryan Claude, USN