Bryan Mullanphy (born 1809 in

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

; died June 15, 1851 in

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...

) was the tenth Mayor of St. Louis, serving from 1847 to 1848. Bryan Mullanphy was the son of John Mullanphy, an Irish immigrant who became a wealthy merchant in St. Louis and in Baltimore. Bryan Mullanphy was born in Baltimore in 1809 and the family moved to St. Louis in 1819. His early education took place in England and France. After returning to the United States, he became a lawyer and practiced in St. Louis. Mullanphy was a member of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen from 1835 to 1836; he was the only one in St. Louis who in 1836 protected the printing press of

Elijah Lovejoy Elijah Parish Lovejoy (November 9, 1802 – November 7, 1837) was an American Presbyterian minister, journalist, newspaper editor, and abolitionist. Following his murder by a mob, he became a martyr to the abolitionist cause opposing slavery ...

, when the police would not. He served as Judge of the St. Louis Circuit Court from 1840 to 1844. In 1847, running as an

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

, he was elected to a one-year term as Mayor. A collection of Native American artefacts that Mullanphy donated to

Stonyhurst College Stonyhurst College is a co-educational Catholic Church, Roman Catholic independent school, adhering to the Society of Jesus, Jesuit tradition, on the Stonyhurst, Stonyhurst Estate, Lancashire, England. It occupies a Grade I listed building. Th ...

(his alma mater) in England was purchased by the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

in 2003.British Museum Collection
/ref> A wealthy man and a philanthropist, Mullanphy is remembered more for his charitable work than his political service. His will provided that one-third of his holdings were to go to the City via a

trust fund A trust is a legal relationship in which the holder of a right gives it to another person or entity who must keep and use it solely for another's benefit. In the Anglo-American common law, the party who entrusts the right is known as the "settl ...

for the relief of emigrants and travelers coming to St. Louis on their way to settle in the western part of the United States. Mullanphy died in St. Louis on June 15, 1851, at the age of 42. He was buried at Calvary Cemetery.

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Sources

*Much of the original content for this article was based on the brief biographies of St. Louis Mayors found at the St. Louis Public Library's website, https://web.archive.org/web/20090718202812/http://exhibits.slpl.lib.mo.us/mayors/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Mullanphy, Bryan 1809 births 1851 deaths Mayors of St. Louis Politicians from Baltimore American people of Irish descent 19th-century American politicians