William James Bryan

US Senator. Born near Fort Mason, Florida, he attended Emory College in Oxford, Georgia, and graduated from the law department of Washington and Lee University in 1899. That same year he was admitted to the bar and returned to his home state to open a law office in Jacksonville. From 1902 to 1907 he was Solicitor of the Duval County Criminal Court of Record. A Democrat, Bryan was appointed to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Stephen R. Mallory, and served four months, from December 1907 until his death from typhoid fever in Washington, DC. At 31 he was the youngest United States Senator to die in office. He was the younger brother of Florida Senator Nathan Philemon Bryan.