Memorial to the John Bryant family, Poplar Springs Cemetery near Skullbone ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ monu-f~1.jpg (23034 bytes) submitted by: Dr. Tony Mack McClure Author of the best selling Native American book "Cherokee Proud" This unique memorial to the John Bryant family is located in Poplar Springs Cemetery near Skullbone. Bryant, a mixed-blood Cherokee Indian, and several of his children and their families were among the first pioneer settlers of Gibson County. Bryant's widowed mother Lucy (Briant) Bryant , also memorialized on the stone, was listed on the 1817 Cherokee Indian roll as a reservee living near the present town of Helen in Northeast Georgia. It was on her individual 640-acre Cherokee reservation land there that gold was first discovered about 1826 - a major event contributing to the infamous Trail of Tears. Her old land, taken from her in 1828 by the shameful Georgia land lottery is today designated as a Georgia historic site by the Georgia Indian Affairs Commission. Many of Lucy Brant's descendants, through her son John Bryant, several of which still reside in Gibson County, are enrolled Cherokee tribal members and take an active part in their unique and proud heritage. BACK