A few years after his arrival his Irish neighbours, the Thomas Hoy family, emigrated to the new world as well. Upon arrival at Bond Head, by shear coincidence, the Hoy family found young Sam Bryson on the pier. Somewhere between 1854 and 1856 Sam married Thomas Hoy's daughter Ann (1831-1898).

In 1856 Annie, as she was called, had their first child, a son, whom they named Robert after Sam's father. Unfortunately, young Robert only enjoyed a short life, dying sometime in March of 1859. By this time Robert's younger brother Thomas had arrived on the scene.

Having married, Sam left his work as a seaman and took a number of labouring jobs; working on the construction of the Grand Trunk Railroad, hauling timber from the forests north of Newcastle, and, around 1860, moving to Campbell's Station—now Campbellcroft—in Hope township, west of Rice Lake. Here, along with Annie's younger brothers, Thomas and David Hoy, he worked in Thomas Campbell's saw mill.

While their next child, William (1861–1933), was born in Campbell Station, when their first daughter, Mary Ann (1863–1918), arrived two years later they were living in Clarke township, presumably in the Kendal area. At this time Sam was probably working for the Kendal saw mill of Theron Dickey.

It is not known exactly where the family lived in their early years at Kendal, but in the 1869 Assessment Roll for Clarke Township, Samuel Bryson is listed as a tenant farmer, with about 10 acres of land on the outskirts of Kendal. No trace of this homestead exists in what later became William Mercers tobacco field on the eastern edge of the village.

The Brysons had a further six children after Robert, Thomas, William and Mary. Following in close succession were Samuel in 1866, Martha Anne in 1868, Hugh Henry in 1870, Margaret Harriet in 1872, Albert Allan in 1875, and the youngest, James Alfred, in 1877.

By the end of the 1870's, the Bryson were tenants of a 5 ½ acre lot located on the south-west corner where the road from Newtonville meets the Kirby/Cambellcroft road, just west of their previous location, but still essentially on the outskirts of Kendal village. (The family home, now a white aluminum covered house, still sits on the corner, although the barn has long since been removed.) It appears that Sam had planned to eventually buy this parcel of land and was saving up to do so when his health began to fail him. His sons who were of working age did what they could to bring in some money as Sam's condition worsened. About two years after his illness began, on Oct. 1, 1879 Samuel Bryson died. He was only 56 years of age.

After the family wake and a brief service by the Kendal Methodist minister, the body was laid to rest at the New Connection Methodist, McLean/Elliot Cemetery, about a mile north of their farm. If there was gravestone or marker it has disappeared and sadly no trace of his final resting place can be found. Situated on a pleasant and lofty hillside, with lovely views of the surrounding countryside, perhaps no finer place could have been chosen for Sam.

Widowed, Ann Bryson was now head of the household, a women who could neither read nor write. She was faced with the task of supporting nine children with no income of her own. With a strength derived from her strong Christian faith, enhanced by her family's conversion to old style Methodism, Ann worked hard to maintain the farm, while the older boys, Thomas and William, worked at the mills to help support the family. The money situation seems not be as desperate as one might imagine because a little over a year after her husband's death, Ann Bryson purchased 4 acres of the land which they had been renting from the Estate of Theron Dickey,.

The village of Kendal had become a thriving community of 500 people. In 1881 there were 15 businesses in operation including a saw and grist mill run by Daniel Comstock and at the other end of the village a major saw mill owned by William Jackson. John Emerson was by this time operating the Kendal House Hotel and Thomas Stanton ran the general store.

In the 1880s, a new generation of mill employees emerged from the Bryson and Hoy families. The oldest Bryson boys, Thomas, William, Samuel and Hugh all found work at the Comstock or Jackson's Mills during this period. Although Thomas Hoy Junior died well before his time in 1881, his son Henry was ready to take over his responsibilities as a teamster for Comstock mills and two of his brothers also worked for the Comstock family, later becoming sawyers in their saw mill. In 1883, young Hughie Bryson, not more than 13, was working with Allan Comstock, the bosses son, when a log fell on him, breaking his leg and causing some internal injuries. Fortunately for Hugh and the Bryson family, he soon recovered from his injuries.

Tragically, Ann Bryson's second youngest son, Albert Allan, contracts pnuemonia and died in 1895. Allan was a young and popular member of the Bryson family and death shortly before his twentieth birthday affected Ann and the family greatly.

By then almost all the children of Ann Bryson had married, and the oldest son, Tom, who had married Elizabeth Gordon a few years earlier, moved to Goderich, Ontario, where he found work as a carpenter.

Three years later, on June 25, 1898, Ann Bryson died at the age of 67. By the following year the other family members had turned their share of the family farm over to their brother, Sam junior . By this time young Sam was an experienced teamster, transporting lumber for Comstock and Jackson's Mills. Like his father before him, Sam Jr. was a jack of all trades; a teamster in his younger years, and later a carpenter, builder, and contractor. It was said that Sam was the best barn builder in Clarke Township in the earlier part of this century.

A few months after Ann Bryson was laid to rest in the new cemetery in Orono, her youngest child James Alfred (1877–1954) headed west, eventually settling in the Manitou, Manitoba area. By the end of the century his brother Hugh (1870–1948) quit his job as a teamster and also headed west, taking up farming near Portage La Prairie, Manitoba.

In 1907, Tom Bryson's wife Mary Elizabeth Gordon died at their home in Goderich. He and his young daughter Eleanor eventually moved to Orillia where Tom married May Theed-Pettifer, a young widow with four children. To this family were added another son and daughter. In 1922 Tom died after living in Orillia for several years working as a carpenter.

A few years earlier, in 1918, Ann's oldest daughter Mary, who had married Wesley Branton, succumbs to appendicitis and was laid to rest at Bondhead Cemetery, not far from where her uncles Henry and Thomas Hoy are buried..

With Sam the younger and his wife Elizabeth Elmer remaining on the family farm, William (Billy) resided at the opposite end of the Kendal village. In 1921, Billy left Kendal altogether and bought his own farm at Kirby, which he farmed with his son Ernest until his death in 1933.

Sam's wife, Elizabeth, died in 1920, while Sam continued on the farm with his younger son, Harold, until his death in 1945.

On April 23rd, 1889, Martha Anne(1868–1940) married Thomas McMullen. In 1930, Martha organised the first official Bryson Family Picnic, on the occasion of her grandson, Scotty Cameron's, tenth birthday. While the numbers have fluctuated over the years, the picnic continues to be an annual event and is now going into it's seventy-second year.

On St Patrick's Day in 1897 Margaret Harriet (1872–1945) married William Savery. When uncle Billy Savery died on July 29, 1963, at 94 years seven months and twenty-five days, he was the last of that generation to depart this world. The last of Sam and Annie's children to die was James Alfred in 1954.

While our Bryson family branch has receded in numbers in Northern Ireland to William Thomas Bryson, now living on the family farm near Crumlin, Co. Antrim, and his two sons, William and James, in Canada the Carrickfergus Bryson family continues as the descendants of Samuel Bryson and his five sons seem in no great danger of extinction.