One of the finest men I’ve ever known was Mr. Jimmy Bryant who was a board member of Haynes Cemetery and a very active caretaker of the property during his years of service. One of my most cherished memories of him was of one Saturday afternoon before Decoration Day. I pulled into the cemetery driveway to find Mr. Jimmy and one of his sons landscaping and placing flowers on his parents’ and grandparents’ graves. At the time, he was in his late 70s and carrying an oxygen tank. Such was his dedication and reverence where his family and Haynes were concerned.
Mr. Jimmy’s parents were Raymond and Pauline Byrum Bryant, and his grandparents were Thomas B. and Florence Gipson Bryant. Her father was Joseph Harrison Gipson, a private in Company A and B, Consolidated, 28th Tennessee Infantry, C.S.A., and her mother was Margaret Ann Pinkston Gipson (both buried at Haynes). So, Jimmy Bryant’s roots were several generations deep at Haynes.
His Bryant line can be traced back to John Harrison Bryant (1760-1833), sometimes called John Guerant Bryant because of his mother’s maiden name. John was a sergeant under Captains Hughes and Porter, and Colonels Randolf and Goode in the Virginia Troops. He fought in the Battle of Guilford Courthouse during the Revolution then, after the war, married Mary Owsley, sister of Governor William Owsley of Kentucky.
John and Mary’s son Thomas W. Bryant was probably the first of the line to move to Marshall County, Tennessee, settling there by the mid-1830s. Their son, David Andrews Bryant, lived at Park Station and was a private in Company H of the 17th Tennessee Infantry. In 1862, he married Ruth Adeline Andrews, sister to George Washington Andrews, buried at Haynes.
One of David and Ruth’s children was Thomas B. Bryant, Jimmy’s grandfather.
After graduating from Columbia Central High School in 1957, Jimmy Bryant served in the United States Marine Corps until 1959. He began his career with Monsanto Chemical Company in Columbia and then was later transferred to Trenton, Michigan where he retired in 1993. After his retirement, he enjoyed working on his family farm where he was born and loved watching the sunrise and sunset. Mr. Bryant was a member of West Seventh Street Church of Christ.
In 2007, he married another very, very fine person, Anne Fox, the daughter of Wilburn Mills and Gaudie Gray Fox.
