John Bryan
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Birth: | 5 Jun 1840 | Ireland |
| Marriage: | 10 Aug 1875 | Montréal, Qc | |
| Death: | 15 Dec 1906 | Montréal, Qc | |
| Burial: | Notre-Dame-des-Neiges | Montréal, Qc | |
| Father: | Mathew Bryan | 1807-unkn | |
| Mother: | Margaret Williams | 1806-unkn |
John Bryan, a nineteen year old Irish immigrant from Kilkenny, arrived in Canada in 1861. He headed for Montreal, a growing metroplis of 91,000 of which there where 14,000 Irish. He took up residence in Griffintown a district of the Montreal where many of the poor Irish lived. Most of these Irish were recent immigrants that left Ireland because of harsh restrictions place on them by the English which caused widespread poverty, made worse by evictions, epidemic disease and the final catastrophe of 1845-1850 – the Great Potato Famine. With the famine a decade behind him, John found Montreal not the city he expected. Griffintown and other low-lying areas in Montreal's southwest experience major flooding the year he arrived.
If flooding wasn't enough, 1861 also marked the beginning of the American civil war. Many Griffintowners were among the 50,000 Canadians that heeded the call to fight for the Union. Many Boston-based Irish units from the Union Army would make regular junkets to Montreal and target Griffintown as a hotbed for recruitment
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Flooding and the neibouring war did not discourage the young lad because this was the the land of opportunity, Just the past year saw the completion of the longest bridge in the world. The Victoria Bridge was officially opened on August 25, 1860, by the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII. This event was well published by the New York Times and even commerated with a medal
We believe John's parents fled Ireland's potato famine to Liverpool. The 1861 England census does have a Mathew and Margaret Bryan in their fifties living in Liverpool. This is where John set sail as a stevedore working on the ships as a stock keeper for the rum runs to the Carribean islands and Montreal.
At the age of 35 he married Elizabeth in the summer of 1875. A year later their first son Edward was born. One can trace some of these early beginnings in the Lovell’s Montreal Directory where John first appeared in 1876 as a stevedore living at 3 Alexander. But these were the years of an economic crisis with increased unemployment and decreased wages. After hearing a rumour that their wages would be cut, the stevedores in the port of Montreal went on a preventive strike in June 1877 and blocked the loading of cattle destined for England. The stevedores were often able to get the upper hand in these struggles by finding strength in numbers and group solidarity
Another year of major flooding occurs in Griffintown in 1886 In addition to two major fires, Griffintown experiences its worst flooding ever
Life seem to be unstable for John at these time as seen by his changes of addresses. From 1877 living at 18 Anderson and then to 86 William in 1878 for a couple of years and then moving again in 1881 to 183 Nazareth and then again in 1882 to 83 St. Constant. We are not sure what happened in the decade 1884-95 as no listing of John appeared in the Lovell's directory.
He is relisted as a stevedore in 1896-1899 Montreal Directory living at 125 Canning. The 1901 census shows the "kids" still at home minus John(1877) who drowned in the Lachine canal a few years earlier.
He died at the age of 67 and was buried at Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery
