John Browne

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1584
• Alternate death: 10 Apr 1662, Rehoboth, Bristol, Massachusetts

Notes:

Arrived in New England in 1635 on the Elizabeth. First in Plymouth, then Taunton by 1643, Rehoboth by 1647. Back in England about 1656; returned to New England by 1660. He may have been a son of Thomas Browne and Ellen Fernyhoughe who married at St. Michael, Macclesfield, Cheshire, 6 Aug 1576. "It has been suggested that he was the John Browne licensed to marry at St. James Clerkenwell, London, 28 Dec. 1611, Dorothy Beauchamp." [Ancestral Lines, citation details below]

He was an educated man, prominent as a magistrate and merchant. Assistant in Plymouth Colony 1636-53; Commissioner for the United Colonies, 1644-56.

Ancestral Lines (citation details below) contains an extensive account of his life, including a number of connections between his family and that of the well-known gateway ancestor Alice Freeman.

From Ancestral Lines (citation details below):

He returned to England in 1655, to serve the Vane family as executor of the estate of the senior Sir Henry Vane, which included Raby Castle in Durham. Sir Henry Vane (born 1589, died 1655) had been Controller of the King's Household for King James I. His son had been in America from 6 Oct. 1635 to 3 Aug. 1637, served as Governor of Massachusetts Bay, and was imprisoned by Cromwell, England's dictator. While George F. Isham attributes John Browne's appointment to a relationship formed in New England, the son "Sir Harry" left Massachusetts long before John Browne and he had an opportunity to establish a bond.

On 23 Nov. 1655 he sold his property in Taunton, Mass. Bay, to "my cozens" John Tisdale and James Walker, whom he described as brothers-in-law. John Tisdale's youngest daughter became a ward of James Browne in 1675.

In 1655 John Browne stayed with the Wray family at Belleau, the Lincolnshire home of Frances Vane, a daughter of Sir Christopher Wray and the wife of Sir Harry Vane (who was born 1613, and executed 14 June 1662, son of Sir Henry Vane) not far from Boston, where Roger Williams had also stayed. While Mr. Browne was at Belleau in 1657 George Fox came for a visit, and mentioned in his diary meeting a "New England magistrate". In 1627 Sir John Wray had been in Gatehouse Prison for failure to collect the ship loan of Charles I. John Browne of Sutterton, a village just south of Boston in Lincolnshire, was among those failing to pay the tax. William Coddington, who also resisted the tax, came to America with the Rev. John Cotton of St. Botolph's church in Boston, was a relative of Edmund Freeman of Sandwich.

Upon the Restoration in 1660, when Charles II returned to the throne, Mr. Browne sailed to his home in Wannamoisett.

John married Dorothy before 1616. Dorothy died on 27 Jan 1674 in Swansea, Bristol, Massachusetts; was buried on 29 Jan 1674 in Swansea, Bristol, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Mary Brown died on 6 Jan 1669 in Plymouth Colony; was buried in Little Neck Cemetery, East Riverside, East Providence, Providence, Rhode Island.
2. James Browne was born about 1623; died on 29 Oct 1710 in Swansea, Bristol, Massachusetts; was buried in Little Neck Cemetery, East Riverside, East Providence, Providence, Rhode Island.