Bryan Ward was a trader among the Cherokees [Brøderbund WFT Vol. 2, Ed. 1, Tree #2009, Date of Import: Aug 8, 1996]
Bryant Ward had served in the British Army during the Colonial Wars in America. After leaving the Army, he remained in America as a trader amongthe colonies and Cherokee Clans. Bryant's wife in Ireland had died, and his Irish son, John Ward, followed his father to America, married into the Cherokee Nation and founded a large family known as the Missionary Wards. Their Daughter, Elizabeth, married Brig. General Joseph Martin II. They had one child, Nancy, who married Michael Hildebrand about 1830. They had children. One grandson, Michael, who appeared on the U. S. Census Roll in Polk Co., Tennessee, as living with his grandfather.
A story, in Indian Women Chiefs states that Bryant Ward traveled in Cherokee Overhill Country shortly after Cherokees captured Fort Loudon August 7, 1760. Cherokee warriors met Bryant and accused him of being a British spy. He was taken before a Council of Chiefs and was sentenced to a test that would have resulted in his death. Nancy intervened for him and a meeting between Nancy and Bryant resulted in their marriage. They had one daughter, Elizabeth.
An article in Flower and Feather says that Nancy and Bryant did not live together very long. At the start of the Cherokee - English war of 1760, Ward left the Cherokee Nation and settled on the Tugaloo River in the Pendelton District of South Carolina where he married a white woman (Ann). His Last Will and Testament was dated August 18, 1815, probated in Franklin Co. Georgia, where he lived at the time of his death in 1815.
The Lyman C. Draper Manuscripts include a letter written by William Martin, son of Joseph Martin, son-in-law to Nancy Ward, through daughter Elizabeth. Letter says that Bryant and Ann Ward (white wife) lived near his home on the Tugaloo River in 1793-1797. He states Bryant Ward had married the notorious Nancy Ward and states "she was, as I think, one of the most superior women I have ever seen (meaning apart from education, ect.). Bryant Ward and his family recognize her, for I have frequently seen her there; we then not living far from the Cherokee settlement."
On the Reservation Roll 1817, and Emigration Roll 1817.
