[3] Born in New Bern, North Carolina, he was the son of Congressman John Heritage Bryan.

[2] In 1883, Bryan was elected as a Democrat to the Baltimore seat on the Court of Appeals vacated by the resignation of Judge James Lawrence Bartol.

[4] As the only judge with no circuit duties to perform, he "delivered the opinion of the court in a large number of cases, many of them being of great importance and public interest".

[1] On October 1, 1857, Bryan married Elizabeth "Lizzie" Edmondson Hayward of Talbot County, Maryland, with whom he had a daughter and three sons.

[1][2] Bryan himself died of liver cancer eight years later, at the age of 79,[2] at the home of his son, William Shepard Jr., who was then attorney general of the state.