Life After Work: Bryan Glover, Community Liaison
When What’s Next, Finds You
I wanted to call Bryan Glover a “community historian” in this Life After Work article. He resisted.
“I don’t consider myself a historian,” he explained. “I am a voice for our Roberts Settlement story, our history. My sister, Lezli, is the Settlement’s family historian and genealogist. She does the investigative work that makes it easy for me to talk about our history.”
I first met Bryan a year ago when he was sharing the history of the Roberts Settlement. It is one of Indiana’s early Black pioneer settlements located in Hamilton County. We met again in January 2026, where a crowd overflowed the room during his community history presentation at the Hamilton East Public Library in Noblesville.
A graduate of Purdue University, Bryan left Indiana and built a long career in the entertainment industry as a finance professional while living in Los Angeles. Over the years, he returned many summers to attend the settlement’s annual celebration.
In 2007, Bryan relocated to Indiana and became a partner in the family wine and spirits shop, Mr. G’s Liquors, founded in 1977 and co-owned by his father, Wayne Glover and uncle, Myron Glover. Bryan remembers the pace vividly.
“I was going sixty miles per hour every day,” he said. “I was busy with all of the activities of entrepreneurship, while also trying to find other opportunities to engage with my community.”
In 2019, Myron and Bryan sold the store. Bryan arrived at a point many of us face in our late 50s and early 60s: an unexpected opportunity to reinvent ourselves.
For Bryan, the next step came into focus. As a descendant of the Roberts family—one of the predominant namesakes of this historic community—he felt called to become more involved in preserving and sharing its story.
That opportunity began taking shape earlier, when Brenda Myers, CEO of Hamilton County Tourism, contacted him about including the Roberts Settlement in Indiana’s 2016 Bicentennial celebration. Bryan was intrigued, Hamilton County’s bicentennial story needed to be fully inclusive!
Drawing on his experience in the entertainment industry, he worked with others— including historian, Dr. Stephen Vincent, author of Southern Seed, Northern Soil, and a local video production company, to produce a film about the Roberts Settlement for the bicentennial. When the film was complete, Bryan and Dr. Vincent went on a screening tour throughout the County.
While many long time Hamilton County residents were familiar with Roberts Settlement, the film introduced newer residents to the history of Indiana’s early Black pioneers. As time went on, the genealogy and research work Lezli worked on for years was integrated into the presentation. It gave visitors a more intimate look at the people and events that shaped the Settlement’s multigenerational story.
After hearing Bryan’s presentation about the historic site last year, I wanted to see it for myself. When my aunt came to visit from Chicago, we made the twenty-mile drive to Atlanta, Indiana. After living in Hamilton County for more than thirty years, I had no idea I was this close to such remarkable history.
Free People of Color migrated from North Carolina and Virginia to Central Indiana beginning in the 1830s, seeking to escape deteriorating racial conditions, violence, and threats to their freedom. In Hamilton County, free people of color purchased land, benefited from greater economic opportunity, and found support among their White abolitionist and anti-slavery neighbors.
The result was a thriving, self-sustaining community with its own school, church, and cemetery. Today, the story of the settlement is preserved at the site, and each year former residents and their descendants return for the annual Homecoming Celebration.
Bryan says simply, “We take advantage of opportunities to tell our story.”
Visitors are welcome to experience the Roberts Settlement and walk the Legacy Walk to learn more about the community’s history. Admission is free. Visitors can make freewill donations using the QR code located at the end of the Legacy Walk exhibit. The Roberts Chapel was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. https://robertssettlement.org
What a great history lesson, Brenda. Hope to visit there some day!