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This summer July 21, 2025 will mark the centennial of the Scopes Trial which was held in Dayton, Tennessee. John T. Scopes was convicted of teaching evolution in a public-school classroom in defiance of the recently passed legislation by the state of Tennessee called the Butler Law. The sentence was a hundred dollar fine, but the conviction was later overturned by the Tennessee Supreme Court. The prosecution was led by William Jennings Bryan with Scopes’s defense headed by Clarence Darrow. Just a year earlier Darrow had saved Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb from the death penalty when they were convicted and given life sentences for the kidnapping and vicious murder of Bobby Franks. Darrow had shown himself to be the defense attorney of the era but his arguments for Scopes proved ineffective. A century later, evolution is still debated and a hot-button issue. If Bryan’s name is recognized today, it may be for the Scopes Trial as interpreted by Stanley Kramer in the film Inherit the Wind, with Spencer Tracey playing Darrow and Frederick March playing Bryan. Darrow is depicted as an enlightened man advocating freedom of thought, while Bryan is stuck in the past fighting progress, and even though he was a Christian he really did not know much about the Bible. It is unfortunate that historical events and personalities are assessed by some people solely from movies. Bryan deserves better and the following will consider just a few of his final years of life.
William Jennings was born March 19, 1860 in Salem, Illinois, to Judge Silas Lillard and Mariah Elizabeth (Jennings) Bryan. His father’s spiritual roots were Baptist and his mother was a Methodist, but they both joined the Baptist Church when Will was twelve. Several of his friends attended the largest church in Salem, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. During a series of revivals in the Cumberland Church, Will professed faith in Christ at the age of thirteen. When he entered Whipple Academy, a classical school in Jacksonville, Illinois, he transferred membership to the First Presbyterian Church. College studies were acquired at Illinois College, also in Jacksonville, 1881, then law school was completed in 1883 at Union College of Law, Chicago, followed by admission to the bar. He married Mary Baird of Perry, Illinois October 1, 1884. When the family moved to Lincoln, Nebraska three years later they transferred their memberships initially to First Church, but when they built a country home they united with Westminster Presbyterian Church in Normal, 1902. The Bryans’ neighbors were all Methodists, so they attended the Methodist Church most often to support their community, but Bryan was a lifelong member of the Presbyterian Church and they both taught Sunday School.
He entered politics and was known for captivating speeches often delivered to multitudes. He was a leader of the Democrats. He represented Nebraska for two terms in the U. S. House of Representatives, 1891-1895; was President Woodrow Wilson’s Secretary of State for two years; and he ran unsuccessfully for the presidency three times (1896, 1900, 1908). He refused to campaign on the Sabbath which raises the question whether his devotion to God’s Law cost him the Whitehouse because he worshipped one day in seven. Bryan debated national hard-money policy during the interrupted administration of Grover Cleveland because he felt the system was hardest on those with lesser means. His public policy views were seeded by the farmers of America’s heartland, and he promoted the lesser against the greater earning the appellation, “The Great Commoner.” Often targeted in his speeches were the aristocratic northeastern elite. His public policy and religious opinions were published in his well-circulated newspaper The Commoner (1901-1923) which at one point had over 100,000 subscribers. After losing the third attempt for the White House to William Howard Taft, he reduced political activities and became popular on the Chautauqua lecture circuit, however there were always friends encouraging him to try for the Oval Office again. Both Bryan and Mary were aging and she was struggling with health issues, so they decided to visit the sunny city of Miami, Florida, far away from the brutal Nebraska winters.
The Bryans arrived in Miami by train in November 1912 just months after Henry M. Flagler rode one of his Florida East Coast Railroad trains to Key West for the first time. Forida’s population was growing and Miami had become the winter destination for those with the means to get there. Anticipating making Miami their winter home, Bryan had purchased land earlier in the year for a house. A great crowd was gathered shoulder to shoulder at the Miami train station when the Nebraskans were welcomed and given the key to the city. An entourage followed the couple as a chauffer drove them to the temporary residence while their house was built on a two-acre lot facing Brickell Avenue. From the backyard of the new house the pilings for a boathouse and dock could be seen in Biscayne Bay. It was the Miami land boom and Bryan was not only hopeful for improved health for Mary but also anticipated investing and prospering in real estate. The lot for the new house was left as much as possible in its natural state with a variety of vegetation including many fruit trees. The house was built of concrete in the Spanish Mediterranean style and named Villa Serena. A neighbor two lots south along Biscayne Bay was industrialist James Deering, the founder of Deering Harvester Company who had recently merged his company with that of Cyrus McCormick to form International Harvester. The Deering estate was named Vizcaya. Several lots north of the Bryans’ property lived a friend, Louis Comfort Tiffany, the wealthy New York designer of stained glass, lamps, and jewelry. Bryan had done well financially over the years and his assets would increase as he bought and sold tracts within Miami’s Dade County. The Great Commoner built his uncommon Villa Serena on what was called Millionaires Row.
The Bryans attended Miami’s First Presbyterian Church but did not become members until 1921 when they moved their official residency to Florida. First Church was a member of the Presbytery of Florida, Synod of Alabama, PCUSA, and it had been organized the same year Miami was incorporated, 1896. Princeton Seminary graduate Willis O. Garrett served the 557 communicants that included among their number twelve elders and eleven deacons. The name of Flagler occurs once again because he was the son of a Presbyterian minister and a member of the Presbyterian Church who not only built railroads but also churches. Just as he funded building the ornate sanctuary of Flagler Memorial Church (PCUSA) in St. Augustine, he also funded First Church’s building and manse in Miami. Bryan taught an adult Sunday school class at First Church beginning in 1913, but classes were held on a sporadic schedule because of his travels. He said the class was one of his greatest pleasures in life. The Miami Herald advertised the church schedule one Sunday with Bryan teaching the “Tourist Bible class in Royal Palm Park” (Jan. 22, 1921). As the header shows hundreds would attend. Just as he had done in the past he continued preaching and teaching in churches of other denominations, especially the Methodists. The Bryans were greatly respected by many Miamians as evidenced by the frequent articles about their church and social activities in the local newspapers. When Bryan was not speaking at Chautauqua events, he was likely speaking somewhere in the region extending from Miami to Palm Beach. Will and Mary were leaders in both the temperance and woman suffrage movements with Mary holding meetings for women only in both categories. They opened Villa Serena on Friday afternoons for a few hours each week so locals and tourists could see their home, have refreshments, and discuss things with The Great Commoner and Mary.
Bryan became a ruling elder at First Church apparently as soon as his letter was transferred because he was a commissioner from Florida Presbytery to the general assembly held in Winona Lake, Indiana in 1921. At the time, Winona Lake was the base of operations for Presbyterian traveling evangelist Billy Sunday. Assembly meetings were held in the new Winona auditorium that was completed the previous year with other gatherings in the Billy Sunday tabernacle. Some commissioners wanted to nominate Bryan as a candidate for moderator, but he was scheduled to arrive in Winona Lake too late. Rev. Henry C. Swearingen of the Presbytery of St. Paul was elected moderator over Rev. John S. Laird, Philadelphia, by a vote of 560 to 312. Bryan was involved in the assembly’s work because he was reelected to serve another four years on the Permanent Committee on Sabbath Observance; he was appointed to the Special Committee on Christian Life and Work; and the assembly adopted Bryan’s resolution,
That the 133rd General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of the U. S. A. viewing with grave concern the rivalry in armaments, threatening as it does the financial stability of the world as well as international friendships, appeals with earnestness and confidence to President Harding to call a conference of the nations for the purpose of securing progressive disarmament and the establishment of universal and perpetual peace. (Minutes, 158)
The League of Nations was established in 1919 for the purpose of maintaining member nations’ borders, settling disputes, and reducing armament. Bryan’s resolution that became the denomination’s went beyond reduction to disarmament. He returned to the general assembly as a commissioner from the recently formed Presbytery of Southeast Florida in 1924. Clarence E. Macartney was elected moderator and appointed Bryan as vice moderator. Bryan also worked on the Bills and Overtures Standing Committee; he presented resolutions that were adopted by the Assembly for continued support of the American Bible Society; he was appointed a principal for the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America meeting in December; he was elected a member of the General Council, class of 1927; and he was one of the speakers at the annual Men’s Fellowship Dinner. Bryan represented his presbytery well and showed himself a capable churchman.
While he was going about his work in Miami as a churchman and speaker, Bryan was also buying and selling property as the city expanded west and south. No price was given but he offered ten acres of land for sale four miles west of Miami that included a small home and garden (News, Mar 6, 1920). He owned four lots in South Bay Estates which was located just a fifteen-minute drive south of Millionaires Row on Dixie Highway (Herald, Jan 12, 1921). The following week he presented for sale “choice lots in Coconut Grove,” just “give him a call” (Herald, Jan 19, 1921). But possibly the biggest investment property was a place developers Junkin & Eerdmans called Bryan Park located at the southwest corner of the intersection of the Tamiami Trail and 22nd Avenue (News, Mar 9, 1922). The developers gave Bryan some lots in Bryan Park in payment for the use of his name, and he promoted it as an idyllic community with fine lawns, an abundance of tropical plants, wide roads, a recreational park (still in use as Bryan Park), and several stores for purchasing household needs. The Great Commoner was doing well, but he and Mary were both aging and it seems their Villa Serena estate was taking a toll on them physically and financially. He was always busy with something, but the curse of death from the fall catches up with everyone and it was reaching out to Bryan.
The new home would not be far from Villa Serena. About a year before the Scopes trial, The Miami News July 29, 1924, announced “Commoner Buys Huntington Estate; Will Name It Marymount.” Marymount was in Coconut Grove and was constructed as “a simple type of Spanish farmhouse with a tiled roof, patio, and a fountain.” The new house provided a smaller but comfortable residence with less maintenance and landscaping to keep up with. In addition to Marymount, he purchased four lots extending from Royal Palm Avenue to Poinciana Avenue, one of which he gave to a daughter. (The Miami Herald, March 1, 1925). As it turns out, the Bryans’ decision to sell Villa Serena would be a blessing for Mary because Will would not live in their new home for long and she could be comfortable with less concerns.
William Jennings Bryan passed away July 26, 1925 in a Dayton hotel room while taking an afternoon nap. The cause of death was a heart attack. The stress, long days, and heat in Dayton during the trial must have contributed to his passing. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery after lying in state and having a memorial service in the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington. Bryan was a generous man in life and the distribution of his estate exhibited that generosity. After his family, the bequests included local churches he was associated with throughout his life, the PCUSA, YMCA, public libraries, and educational institutions. The Bryan home in Nebraska was donated to the Methodists for conversion to a hospital. During the time in Dayton he expressed interest in establishing a Christian university to provide instruction based on the Bible and to counter the theory of evolution. Bryan College in Dayton was chartered in 1930 as William Jennings Bryan University and continues to provide Christian education. One university seeded by concepts from Bryan is the University of Miami in Coral Gables, which fulfilled an idea he presented in a speech during a banquet in 1916. His idea for the University of Miami was “a training school for students from the Americas interested in Latin American and Anglo-American language and affairs” (Tebeau, 4). The opening of the Panama Canal in 1915 had prompted Bryan and other North Americans to take advantage of expanded opportunities for commerce and relations with Latin America, so a Pan-American institution made sense. When the University of Miami opened in 1926 it was not the Pan-American college he proposed, but possibly some fulfillment of his vision is in the U of today by virtue of its Latin American community and connections. Unfortunately, his concern about how evolution would affect the thinking of students and turn some against the Bible has come to pass.
Bryan had written a speech for after the Scopes Trial, but he died before it could be delivered. The speech was published and he commented that,
God may be a matter of indifference to the evolutionists, and a life beyond may have no charm for them, but the masses of mankind will continue to worship their Creator and continue to find comfort in the promise of their Savior that He has gone to prepare a place for them. Christ has made of death a narrow, starlit strip between the companionship of yesterday and the reunion of tomorrow; evolution strikes out the stars and deepens the gloom that enshrouds the grave. (Herrick & Herrick)
Barry Waugh
Notes—The header is a snip of about half of the panorama photograph titled, “‘Neath palms and sunshine; William Jennings Bryan’s Presbyterian Tourist Bible Class, Miami, Fla., Feb. 6th, 1921,” which is held by the Library of Congress; Bryan is faintly visible on the bandstand at the left within the tan circle, but if the header does not fit on your screen, the last picture is a closeup of the bandstand. In the late nineteenth century cameras made specifically for panorama images were developed leading to their popularity circa 1910 to 1930. The pictue of “Line Up With Bryan” is from the New York Public Library Digital Collection; faintly on the top line are the words, “The Great Commoner.” The picture of Will and Mary on the front lawn of their Marymount home in Coconut Grove is from Herrick & Herrick.
Sources include, The Memoirs of William Jennings Bryan¸ by William Jennings & Mary Baird Bryan, Philadelphia: The United Publishers of America, 1925. See also This Day in Presbyterian History by the PCA Historical Center, “March 19: William Jennings Bryan.” Information about the Bryans’ membership in First Church, Jacksonville, Illinois, is from the church website, https://firstpresjax.org/about-us/. Information about Commoner is from “Nebraska Newspapers,” by the University of Nebraska. Both the U. S. House and Senate have historical lists of their members from the beginning of the nation. Helpful is the life written by Genevieve Forbes Herrick & John Origen Herrick, The Life of William Jennings Bryan, published shortly after Bryan’s death in 1925. Another biography is A Righteous Cause: The Life of William Jennings Bryan, by Robert W. Cherny, published in New York by Little Brown, 1985.
Newspaper sources include, the Bryans arriving in Miami from, “Mr. and Mrs. W. J. Bryan Arrive in Miami to Make this City their Future Home,” The Miami News (called The Miami Metropolis at the time), Sat, Nov 23, 1912, pages 1, 9. Specifics of Villa Serena are from, The Miami News, “Miami as a Home for Mr. W. J. Bryan: Commoner Buys an Axe and Will Work on His Place,” Sat, Nov 30, 1912, page 2. Regarding Mary, “Biographical Sketch of Mary Baird Bryan,” on the Alexander Street site was informative.
Royal Palm Park on Biscayne Bay is currently named Bayfront Park, and it has grown to 32 acres in downtown Miami. Information about Henry Flagler is from, Flagler and His Church, Jacksonville: Paramount Press, 1970; the author, David A. Redding’s main interest in the book is Flagler Memorial in St. Augustine, but he gives a brief account of Flagler’s other work in the state including the Miami church. Thomas Graham’s Mr. Flagler’s St. Augustine, Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2014, is informative and an enjoyable read for those interested in Florida history. Also used was Tracy Hollingsworth, History of Dade County, Florida, Glade House: Coral Gables, 1949. Charlton W. Tebeau’s book is, The University of Miami: a Golden Anniversary History, 1926-1976, Coral Gable: University of Miami Press, 1976; he also published a history of Florida. Newspaper information about Bryan at the 1921 GA is from Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, May 15, 1921. The 1921 PCUSA GA minutes were published as Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Philadelphia: Office of the General Assembly, 1921; the 1924 minutes are titled similarly.
It was mentioned that Bryan was appointed to the “General Council” which was an international body “intended to show the world that the various branches of the Presbyterian family are one, to bring their united influence to bear against sin, to help and encourage feeble churches, and to arrange for the formation of native churches among the heathen, gathering into them the converts of the missions of the various Presbyterian churches,” which Wayne Sparkman of the PCA Historical Center has transcribed from Robert P. Kerr’s, Presbyterianism for the People, which can be accessed HERE.
