Bernard, J.T. (Jesse Talbot), 1829-1909.

Jesse Talbot Bernard was born in Portsmouth, Virginia in 1829. He taught school and practiced law in various locales in Florida. While teaching in the Tallahassee area he married Mary Elizabeth Bradford, daughter of Thomas Bradford, owner of the Pine Hill Plantation in Leon County.

In 1861 Bernard entered the Provisional Army of the Confederacy. He was appointed a Captain and Assistant Quartermaster for the Eighth Florida Infantry Regiment. He served in that capacity for the majority of the war until being assigned to General Robert E. Lee's staff where he remained until the end of the war.

After the war, Bernard returned to Tallahassee and resumed a career in law, real estate, and cotton merchandizing. He served as Leon County Judge (1869-1873) and was mayor of Tallahassee (1876). He died in 1909 and is buried in the Tallahassee city cemetery.