Benjamin Frederick Browne was born on July 14, 1793 in Salem, Massachussets, the son of Benjamin and Elizabeth (Andrew) Browne, and was baptized in the East Church that same day by the Rev. William Bentley. On his father's side he was a descendant in the seventh generation of John Browne, who joined the First Church in Salem in 1637, and on his mother's side of the Rev. Francis Higginson, the first minister of the First Church.
Benjamin Browne entered the shop of E. S. Lang, an apothecary, August 3, 1807, and completed a five years' apprenticeship just as the outbreak of war with England destroyed the commerce of the port and made it impossible for Browne to find gainful employment on land. Though short of stature and delicate of health, he shipped in September 1812 as surgeon's assistant on the privateer Alfred.
The cruise began auspiciously with the capture of two brigs laden with cotton, sugar, and dye stuffs, but thereafter the captain was inexplicably timid and ended the venture suddenly at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, January 7, 1813.
Browne next enlisted on the privateer Frolic. This schooner, with her wedge-shaped bottom and reedy masts, was a freak of marine architecture and behaved so alarmingly in the first white squall that the crew returned their bounty money and the captain put back to port. Rebuilt, the Frolic set forth again, with Browne acting as captain's clerk, purser, and sergeant of marines.
On January 25, 1814, after a plucky attempt to escape, she was captured by the English man-of-war Heron and the crew carried as prisoners to Barbados. In August of the same year Browne, with the other enlisted men, was shipped to England and marched across the hills from Plymouth to Dartmoor, where he was incarcerated until May 1, 1815. The scanty fare and other hardships of the prison so told on his health that at the time of his discharge he weighed only ninety-four pounds. He returned to Salem and to fifty-eight years of humdrum.
On January 1, 1823, he set up a drug store of his own. He was representative to the General Court in 1831, state senator in 1843, postmaster of Salem 1845-49.
On January 1, 1860, he retired from business, but until stricken with paralysis three months before his death he returned daily to the store to occupy his old chair, watch his erstwhile partner compound prescriptions, and exchange gossip with droppers-in. Sometime in middle life, however, he wrote out the story of his three years of sailing, fighting, and imprisonment.
Benjamin Frederick Browne wrote out the story of his three years of sailing, fighting, and imprisonment. As the "Papers of an Old Dartmoor Prisoner, Edited by Nathaniel Hawthorne, " these reminiscences appeared serially in the United States Magazine and Democratic Review during 1846. The author had the faculty of presenting just those details about which a reader will be curious, and he wrote with admirable sureness, vigor, and humor. With the addition from Hawthorne's manuscript copy of some chapters on life in Barbados, the account was republished in 1926 as The Yarn of a Yankee Privateer. The publishers did not know the name of the author and offered a reward of $500 for his identification.
In his religious affiliation Browne was a Congregationalist and for fifty years attended the Independent Congregational Church in Barton Square.
The author had the faculty of presenting just those details about which a reader will be curious, and he wrote with admirable sureness, vigor, and humor.
Quotations: "A careful comparison of the original manuscript with the printed copy shows that the narrative owes nothing whatever to the accomplishments of the editor except some slight use of the pruning knife".
On January 23, 1825, Benjamin Browne married Sally Bott.
