Owen Forrester Browne

Owen Forrester Browne
Captain Owen Forrester Browne
Born	New Westminster, British Columbia
Died	1948 New Westminster, British Columbia
Occupation	steamship captain
Spouse	Margaret Seymour
Parents	Owen Wormley Browne and Teresa Aponi

Owen Forrester Browne was a paddle steamer captain in British Columbia, and Alberta, Canada. He was born in New Westminster and worked on the lower Fraser and Yukon River sternwheelers before coming to the upper Fraser River in the early 1900s.

Career

BX 1911

Owen Forrester Browne 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.^[1]

Browne skippered the BX for her 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 that had been intended for building the Deep Creek Bridge of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway.^[2]

Northland Echo 1931

After he left the Fraser, Browne piloted the Northland Echo on the Athabasca River in Alberta.

Family

In 1915, Browne married Margaret Seymour of South Fort George, daughter of the locally famous, Granny Seymour, and they had four sons and five daughters.^[3] 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 retired in New Westminster, where he died in 1948.^[3]

See also

• Steamboats of the Upper Fraser River in British Columbia

Further reading

• Koppel, Tom (1995). Kanaka:The Untold Story of Hawaiian Pioneers in British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest. Whitecap Books. pp. 104. ISBN 1-55110-295-1. 
• Downs, Art (1971). Paddlewheels on the Frontier Volume 1. Foremost Publishing. ISBN 0888260334. 
• West, Willis (1985). Stagecoach and Sternwheel Days in the Cariboo and Central BC. Heritage House. ISBN 0-919214-68-1. 
• West, Willis (1949). BX and the Rush to Fort George. BC Historical Quarterly. 

Notes

1. ^ Downs, Art (1971). Paddlewheels on the Frontier Volume 1. Foremost Publishing. pp. 50–52. ISBN 0888260334. 
2. ^ West, Willis (1985). Stagecoach and Sternwheel Days in the Cariboo and Central BC. Heritage House. pp. 94. ISBN 0-919214-68-1. 
3. ^ ^{a b} Koppel, Tom (1995). Kanaka:The Untold Story of Hawaiian Pioneers in British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest. Whitecap Books. pp. 103–104. ISBN 1-55110-295-1. 

External links

• Explorasion.org. "Asian North America Timeline Project at UBC". http://www.explorasian.org/project.html. Retrieved 2007-08-03. 

related topic : Puget Sound Mosquito Fleet

Persondata
Name	Browne, Owen Forrester
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth
Place of birth	New Westminster, British Columbia
Date of death	1948
Place of death	New Westminster, British Columbia