| Birth: | 24 Oct 1815 in Lafayette Parish, LA |
| Death: | 5 Mar 1871 in Perry, LA |
| Sex: | M |
| Father: | George O'Bryan b. 7 Feb 1789 in Fincastle, Greenbriar Co., WV |
| Mother: | Eleanor Merriman b. 17 Jun 1798 in Lafayette Parish, Louisiana |
| Spouses & Children |
| Mary Alzenith Perry (Wife) b. 26 Mar 1825 in Perry, LA | |
| Marriage: | 27 Jun 1843 in Louisiana |
| Children: | |
| |
| Notes |
lawyer, postmaster, state legislator
Confederate militia (Colonel, POW)
Mary Ellen, Nancy and Alice were singing in the Catholic choir when he died.
Daniel O'Bryan (20), George O'Bryan's son and Ruth O'Bryan's grandfather, served in the Louisiana legislature, the Constitutional Convention of 1845 and the Secession Convention of 1861. From 1839 to 1841, he was postmaster of Lafayette. On March 22, 1841, the Lafayette Police Jury (similar to a county commissioners court) appropriated $1000 to Daniel, giving him one year to "arrange and put in proper order the papers and documents of the Parish Judge's office." The next March, the commissioners approved his work and appointed him as one of three administrators of the parish schools. In June they paid him $1900 for his work. Daniel resigned as school administrator in June 1843, the same month he married Mary Alzenith Perry and began managing his father-in-law's businesses. By 1849, he was guardian for his young half-brother George Washington Bryan, who had lived with Louisiana relatives since he was a baby. But a whipping from Daniel prompted 16-year-old "Wash" to move back in with his father in Texas, where he later became a Civil War captain and drilled for oil at Spindletop.
In 1850, after studying law under Joseph W. Walker in Perry, LA, Daniel was admitted to the bar and practiced law successfully in Abbeville until his death. He served as Clerk of Court in Abbeville, where he signed legal documents "D. O'Bryan" (some of them in French). He also advertised his law practice in the newspaper in French. As president of the Vermilion Parish Democratic Convention in 1856 and 1857, "he made many lively and powerful speeches."
During the Civil War, Daniel was a colonel in the Louisiana militia, an enrolling officer for the Confederate Army. Though a letter written May 8, 1861 suggests that he didn't fight in the Civil War himself, in fact he signed special requisitions for supplies on July 31, 1864 and October 1864 "in the field" for the "VAAQM, 2nd Regiment N.C. Cavalry, Barringer's Brigade," as a lieutenant. Arrested on October 18, he was transferred with other prisoners of war to New Orleans under the custody of Capt. J.B. Gorsuch. He was a prisoner for two years, at one time being held on Basil Crow's cooper ship with several other prominent Louisiana residents.
By now, probably through his wife's influence, the O'Bryans were no longer Protestant, as Christopher O'Bryan had been. Daniel lived on the Vermilion River opposite Perry's Bridge in Abbeville on Rue Louisianaise, on the corner of Boulevard St. Victor. Rue St. Charles ran behind the four-lot tract, with 180 feet frontage on each street and 280 feet deep. He died there one Sunday morning after breakfast, while his daughters were singing in the choir at the Catholic church, which they attended by boat. He is buried in a white marble tomb (missing one corner) in the Perry/O'Bryan Historical Cemetery, near his father-in-law Robert Perry, whose estate he served as executor. His sons included Oliver Henry O'Bryan.
At his death in 1872, besides his main residence, Daniel owned two more lots on the other side of Boulevard St. Victor, which therefore ran through his property, plus three more lots elsewhere in town. Elsewhere in Vermilion Parish, he owned 123 acres on Grosse Isle, partly wooded, 180 acres near the River Mermenthau, and six other rural parcels. Besides the land, his estate auction included, "one set of sugar rollers, two pairs of corn millstones, one eight-day clock, one Colt's Navy Revolver, one lot bar-iron, one iron turning lathe, one iron axle, one cross-cut saw, one lot of paving brick, one lot of sheep, one lot of wild horses and mares, one lot of gentle cattle and one branding iron."
lawyer, postmaster, state legislator
Confederate militia (Colonel, POW)
Mary Ellen, Nancy and Alice were singing in the Catholic choir when
hedied.
!BIRTH: buried at Perry, maybe b, Mar. 22, d. Oct. 5. Note
transposition with
his wife, see carbon list beginning Robert Perrry O'Bryan
!DEATH: an old note in Ruth O'Bryan McGinnis' hand says April 12, 1871.I
think
it's her hand. Another source he died in Abbeville.
!MARRIAGE:Kate Conrad and Virginia O'Bryan say Mar. 27, 1843 on a typed
manuscript headed DANIEL O'BRYAN. June 20 1843 (Laf Ch v. 3