Ann Bryan Gause

Not a known child of Needham Bryan

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Note from Private User: Given the totality of the circumstances, and in summary of the notes of others below, I believe that we can conclude that Ann was the widow of an unknown Mr. Bryan, who then died and left her with 3 children, whom William Gause then adopted as his own.

• The main roadblock to this conclusion seems to be the assumption that she was not married prior to receiving property from William Gause.
• The legal term "spinster," in 1740, only meant unmarried at that time - not that she had never been married.
• It makes far more sense that a prominent man such as William Gause in the 1740s would marry a widow (from another prominent family) with three children, than that he would marry an open adulteress - or marry a woman with whom he'd had an openly adulterous relationship.
• The transfer of property from William to "Ann Bryan (spinster)" in 1740, and the record showing he owned and disposed of the same property 5 years later, plus that his first three children, born around the exact same time, had the same names, is strong enough evidence that Ann became his wife, given the totality of the circumstances.
• William Gause sold the same property, five years later for £700. This is the equivalent of about $250,000 today! This is no small transfer of money. These were wealthy people and families.
• William Gause recorded this large property transfer in the Craven County court. He also recorded the later sale of this large amount of property in the Craven County court. There was no destruction of Craven records from intervening years. It is illogical that he would simply fail to record a transfer of a quarter of a million dollars' worth of property back to him in these intervening years.
• The way for William Gause to have re-taken ownership of this property without recording it is by marrying Ann Bryan.
• A woman named Ann Bryan and/or three brothers named Needham, John, and William Bryan, born prior to 1740, and living in NC, have never reappeared or been accounted for in later documents.
• William Gause had dealings with the Bryan family, in which the name "Needham" was common.
• Given the naming conventions of the time and the location of the families, it's a possibility that Ann's first husband was a grandson of John Bryan of Nansemond.

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From http://anygreenplace.com/williamgause.html

In 1743 a deed to one Ann Bryan, "a spinster," from William Gause, Innkeeper, of "Long Bay of the Parish of Prince George," conveys to her several Negro slaves, furniture, bedding, and livestock. The deed was recorded in Craven County, SC, 4 Jan 1744. It speaks of her heirs, Needham Bryan, John Bryan, and William Bryan and identifies her as Ann Bryan of Crraven County, SC. These are the first names of three of William Gause's children, i.e., Needham, John, and William. There is also a Bryan Gause in the 1800 census. The name of William Gause's wife does not appear in any records so far available. Probably Ann Bryan became the wife of William Gause Sr, and the children named above were either fathered by or adopted by William Gause Sr.

On 14 Mar 1745 William Gause sold to Henry Warner for 700 pounds the same property that he had given to Ann Bryan for the use of her sons. That suggests that he had married Ann, thus making the property his to sell. When Henry Warner returned it to her sons in 1746, she was Ann Gaus with the same three sons plus Charles. This document is recorded on page 116, book 75A, of "SC Wills, Inventories and Miscellaneous Documents, from 1746."