Owen Forrester Browne was a

paddle steamer A paddle steamer is a steamship or steamboat powered by a steam engine driving paddle wheels to propel the craft through the water. In antiquity, paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, whereby the first uses were wh ...

captain in

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

, and

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. He was born in

New Westminster New Westminster (colloquially known as New West) is a city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada, and a member municipality of the Metro Vancouver Regional District. It was founded by Major-General Richard Moody as the cap ...

and worked on the lower

Fraser Fraser may refer to: Places Antarctica * Fraser Point, South Orkney Islands Australia * Fraser, Australian Capital Territory, a suburb in the Canberra district of Belconnen * Division of Fraser (Australian Capital Territory), a former federal ...

and

Yukon River The Yukon River is a major watercourse of northwestern North America. From its source in British Columbia, it flows through Canada's territory of Yukon (itself named after the river). The lower half of the river continues westward through the U.S ...

sternwheelers before coming to the upper Fraser River in the early 1900s.

Career

Owen Forrester Browne, of Hawaiian heritage, began work on the upper Fraser River in 1906 piloting the pioneer sternwheeler '' Charlotte''. Because of his familiarity with the river and his skill as a swift water pilot the BC Express Company hired him to pilot their first sternwheeler, the '' BX''. Hawaiian pilots were known for their confidence in rough waters and intuitive navigational skills. Browne skippered the ''BX'' for his entire career from May 13, 1910, until August 1919 when she sank in the Cottonwood Canyon carrying 100 tons of sacked cement bound for

Soda Creek Soda Creek is a rural subdivision 38 km north of Williams Lake in British Columbia, Canada. Located on the east bank of the Fraser River, Soda Creek was originally the home of the Xat'sull First Nation. Soda Creek Indian Reserve No. 1 is ...

that had been intended for building the Deep Creek Bridge of the

Pacific Great Eastern Railway The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

After he left the Fraser, Browne piloted the ''

Northland Echo ''Northland Echo'' was a sternwheel steamship operated by the Northern Transportation Company on the Mackenzie River system. In 1910 the vessel carried the first buffalo to the new Buffalo National Park in Alberta. In 1911 when the ice broke up ...

'' on the

Athabasca River The Athabasca River (French: ''Rivière Athabasca'') in Alberta, Canada, originates at the Columbia Icefield in Jasper National Park and flows more than before emptying into Lake Athabasca. Much of the land along its banks is protected in nationa ...

Family

In 1915, Browne married Margaret Seymour of

South Fort George South Fort George is a suburb of Prince George, British Columbia, Canada. Before the arrival of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway in 1914, the Prince George area was known as Fort George and was a Lheidli T'enneh village and Hudson's Bay Company st ...

, daughter of the locally famous, Granny Seymour, and they had four sons and five daughters. One of Browne's daughters was named Tito who married Ranford Messer in 1952 and 4 children, 2 sons and 2 daughters. One of Messer's daughters was Colleen Messer, who married Bruce Holbrook and had 2 daughters, Stephanie and Sasha. Browne's Children include Hugh M. Browne, Betty O'Donnell, Tito Messer, Oni Browne, Blani Olson, William Browne, Earl Browne, May Thomas, and Leila Johnston. Browne retired in New Westminster, where he died in 1948. Browne's mother-in-law Granny Seymour (née Margaret Boucher) came to be known as the holder of important traditional herbal medicine and Indigenous knowledge and her longevity attracted local and international attention. Seymour's home was South Fort George, at the northern end of the BX route.

Notes

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Browne, Owen Forrester 1948 deaths Steamship captains Cariboo people People from New Westminster 1869 births

Career

Family

See also

Further reading

Notes

External links