Andrew Bryan faced another crisis upon the death of Jonathan Bryan, his master. He succeeded, however, in emerging as a free man, the heirs of the estate having given him an opportunity to purchase his freedom for fifty pounds. Fortune prospered him thereafter to the extent that he soon bought in Yamacraw a lot on which he built a residence not far from the place of worship. Upon the final division of the Bryan estate it developed that the church building was still controlled by that family, but the worship of these communicants continued there under the supervision of the whites without serious interruption. The membership had then reached 700. Bryan soon obtained a position of influence in spite of all of his difficulties, as is evidenced by his own testimony in addressing his coworker, Dr. Rippon, in 1800. He said: "With much pleasure I inform you, dear sir, that I enjoy good health, and am strong in body, at the age of sixty-three years, and am blessed with a pious wife, whose freedom I have obtained, and an only daughter and child, who is married to a free man, though she, and consequently under our laws, her seven children, five sons and two daughters, are slaves. By a kind Providence I am well provided for, as to worldly comforts (though I have had very little given me as a minister), having a house and lot in this city, besides the land on which several buildings stand, for which I receive a small rent, and a fifty-acre tract of land, with all necessary buildings, four miles in the country, and eight slaves; for whose education and happiness I am enabled through mercy to provide."