Bryan Mullanphy (1809 in
Baltimore
Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...
,
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...
– June 15, 1851, in
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an Independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Miss ...
) 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, 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 Pennsylvania, United States
* Independentes (English: Independents), a Portuguese artist ...
, he was elected to a one-year term as Mayor.
A collection of Native American artefacts that Mullanphy donated to
Stonyhurst College
Stonyhurst College or Stonyhurst is a co-educational Catholic Public school (United Kingdom), public school providing education for boarding school, boarding and day school, day pupils, adhering to the Society of Jesus, Jesuit tradition. It is ...
(his alma mater) in England was purchased by the
British Museum
The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...
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 owner of property, or any transferable right, gives it to another to manage and use solely for the benefit of a designated person. In the English common law, the party who entrusts the property is k ...
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.
References
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 mayors of places in Missouri