Edwin Bryant

Edwin H. Bryant (August 21, 1805 – December 16, 1869) was a Kentucky newspaper editor whose popular 1848 book What I Saw in California describes his overland journey to California, his account of the infamous Donner Party, and his term as second alcalde, or pre-statehood mayor, of the city of San Francisco.

Early life and newspaper career Bryant was born in Pelham, Massachusetts, the son of the first cousins Ichabod Bryant and Silence Bryant. Bryant had an unhappy childhood and his father was frequently imprisoned for debt. He lived with his uncle Bezabiel Bryant in Bedford, New York. He studied medicine under his uncle, Dr. Peter Bryant, father of the poet William Cullen Bryant. He may have attended Brown University. and edited the New York Examiner in Rochester, New York. Word of Bryant's limited medical experience had spread to other wagon trains and one enlisted him to help a ten-year-old boy with a crushed leg. Bryant helped a drover who had been a surgeon's assistant attempt an amputation with a handsaw, but the boy died during the primitive procedure.

In June, concerned about the slow pace of the wagon train, Bryant and a small group of others rode ahead on pack mules, leaving most of the other pioneers, including the Donner Party, behind.

Bryant arrived in San Francisco in September 1846 and soon involved himself in the affairs of Alta California. He volunteered to serve with Captain John C. Frémont and served as 1st Lieutenant of Company H under Robert T. Jacobs. The next year, General Stephen W. Kearny appointed Bryant the second alcalde of San Francisco, a post in which he served from February to June 1847. The post is a predecessor to that of Mayor of San Francisco, but it also had judicial functions as well, and later in life Bryant was sometimes referred to as Judge Bryant. One of Bryant's key acts was to arrange for the sale of 450 lots of publicly owned waterfront property to private buyers, and arranged to purchase fourteen lots for himself for $4000. Originally intending to return home by sea, he accompanied General Kearny's overland party bringing Frémont east to stand trial for his actions in California. Later in 1847 he testified at Frémont's court martial.

Bryant made a final trip to California by railroad while in poor health in June 1869. In December, he was moved to the Willard Hotel in Louisville where he could be closer to medical assistance. There, he died after jumping out of a window.