BRYANT, Gridley James Fox (1816-1899) was an important and prolific architect from Boston, Mass. who, with his partner Henry Nelson Black, opened an office in Saint John, N.B. shortly after the Great Fire of June 20, 1877. They came to the city '...with the highest testimonials of capacity and the largest experience in the designing of private and public buildings in many cities of the United States' (Saint John Daily Telegraph, 24 July 1877, 1). They designed the Stewart & White Block, Charlotte Street at King Square, SAINT JOHN, N.B., 1877 (Saint John Daily Telegraph, 27 Aug. 1877, 3, descrip.), and a hotel for John McCoskery, Prince William Street near Reed's Point, SAINT JOHN, N.B., 1877 (Saint John Daily Telegraph, 4 April 1878, 1, descrip.). The Boston Public Library holds copies of undated plans by Bryant for a store and tenement block in nearby PORTLAND., N.B., a town northwest of the centre of Saint John (B.P.L., Fine Arts Div., Bryant Coll., Item 54).
Their partnership was dissolved in early January 1878 and Henry N. Black remained in New Brunswick to carry on his own practice. In Boston, Bryant had gained extensive experience in rebuilding the core area of that city after the devastating fire of 1872, and there is no doubt that he referred his potential clients in Saint John to the more that one hundred commissions that his office had completed in Boston by 1875. His best known work in that city includes the imposing City Hall (1861-65), considered his masterpiece and executed in the Second Empire style, the Massachusetts State House Extension, (1855-57), and the Beebe Block (1861). He died in Boston on 8 June 1899 (biography in Macmillan Encyclopedia of Architects, 1982, i, 315-16; H. Withey, Biographical Dictionary of American Architects, 1956, 87). A biography and illustration of several projects by Bryant, was prepared by James O'Gorman and published in the 1989 exhibiton catalogue entitled On The Boards - Drawings by Nineteenth Century Boston Architects, pages 53-58.