Land! For Bryan Bruin and his son, Peter Bryan Bruin, it was always about land. This narrative tells how they acquired it, fought to save it, struggled to profit from it, and too often lost it.
In the 1750s, Bryan Bruin journeyed to the sparsely settled Virginia frontier where he became a well-known land speculator and entrepreneur. Due largely to grants from Lord Fairfax, he eventually owned vast acreages in the Northern Neck of the Colony of Virginia. In the late 1780s, both Bruin men left the newly formed United States to make a perilous voyage to Spanish-held Mississippi in search of rich delta land. There, Peter Bryan Bruin, as a trusted confidant of the Spanish governor, obtained abundant land through Spanish grants and became a leader among the elite of the Anglo settlers.
War is ever a menace for landowners. As proprietors, the Bruins experienced three major wars in America, and their fortunes were threatened constantly by European conflicts. Bryan Bruin witnessed the savagery of the French and Indian War as France and England battled to control and expand their territories in the American colonies. Peter Bryan Bruin spent seven grueling years soldiering in the American Revolutionary War, rising in the ranks to be officially known to Daniel Morgan, Aaron Burr, George Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette, and Thomas Jefferson. Peter's son, Edmonds, served in the War of 1812 when Britain sought to retake all of the United States.
Although each possessed enormous amounts of land, sustainable wealth eluded both father and son. Most of Bryan Bruin's Virginia property was swept away by misadventure and indebtedness. Peter Bryan Bruin's Mississippi real estate suffered the vagaries of two sovereign states. The story of how these men dealt with the political, economic, religious, and geographical influences of their time is also the story of the making of America.
The saga of Bryan and Peter Bryan Bruin is also about their families. In addition to their contemporary relatives, such as the Humphreys and Edmonds families, seven generations of the descendants of Bryan and Elizabeth Bruin are documented. Among the surnames involved are: Berry Briscoe Bruin Burnet Cocke Cummins Darden Edmonds Emanuel Goldman Grubb Hubbard Humphreys Lawson Miller Penn Phillips Scott Kolp Sydnor Tresevant Walker Watson Wilson
