Hugh O'Bryant

Hugh O’Bryant was born in 1813 in Franklin County, Georgia, to a missionary father.[2] There he was raised among the Cherokee Indians due to his father’s missionary work.[2] Hugh later moved to Arkansas where in early 1843 he set out for the Oregon Country.[2] He arrived at Oregon City, Oregon, in October 1843 and set up shop as a merchant.[2]

After two years in Oregon City O’Bryant moved across the Willamette River to Portland, Oregon, where he remained until 1852.[2] In 1847, he volunteered to fight in the Cayuse War after the Whitman massacre.[2] During 1848 he served in Second Company of the Oregon Riflemen for the Provisional Government of Oregon as a first lieutenant.[3]

In 1851, he won Portland's first mayoral election by a mere four votes over challenger Joseph Showalter Smith,[4] O'Bryant's one-year reign was known for the failure of Portland's first government to effectively govern the city, leading to a new city charter in 1852.[5]

In O'Bryant's only year as mayor, he missed seven out of thirty-one council meetings. Although the council passed resolutions to build roads, build a jail, and purchase a fire engine, none of these materialized under O'Bryant's leadership. Funds for the fire engine were authorized by citywide vote on May 26, 1851, but it was only a week before his term ended, the following March, that O'Bryant notified the council that the bills authorizing this purchase were sitting on his desk, unsigned.[6] Later he performed justice of the peace duties, and was a gold prospector. However, perhaps his greatest assets in Portland were his carpentry skills, which were in great demand with new immigrants flooding Portland.[7]

In 1852, he moved to Salem, then to Roseburg, where he married his wife, Matilda, and had seven children. While in Southern Oregon O'Bryant served in the Oregon Territory’s legislature beginning in 1855.[8] The following session he returned, again serving as a Democrat representing Douglas, Coos, Umpqua, and Curry counties in the upper chamber Council.[9] Then in 1857 he became the President of that chamber.[10] Lastly in 1858 he was a member of Oregon's last Territorial Legislature as Oregon awaited statehood.[11]

In 1860, O'Bryant moved on to Walla Walla, of the Washington Territory, where he served in the territorial legislature.[2] Later he moved to Merced County, California, where he died in 1883.[12] O'Bryant Square in Portland is named after O'Bryant. On July 13, 2023, the park was renamed after the late Darcelle XV.[13]

• List of mayors of Portland, Oregon