Owen Forrester Browne

BX 1911

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.[1]

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 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.

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's Children include Hugh M. Browne, Betty O'Donnell, Tito Messer, Oni Browne, Blani Olson, William Browne, Earl Browne, Betty O’Donnell and May Thomas, and Leila Johnston.

Browne retired in New Westminster, where he died in 1948.[3]

Browne's mother-in-law Granny Seymour (nee Margaret Boucher) came to be known as the holder of important traditional herbal medicine and Indigenous knowledge[4] and her longevity attracted local and international attention.[5] Seymour's home and notoriety as a midwife was South Fort George, at the northern end of the BX route.

• Steamboats of the Upper Fraser River in British Columbia

• Koppel, Tom (1995). Kanaka:The Untold Story of Hawaiian Pioneers in British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest. Whitecap Books. p. 104. ISBN 1-55110-295-1.
• Downs, Art (1971). Paddlewheels on the Frontier Volume 1. Foremost Publishing. ISBN 0-88826-033-4.
• 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.

• Explorasion.org. "Asian North America Timeline Project at UBC". Archived from the original on 2007-07-30. Retrieved 2007-08-03.