Albert Gallatin Browne Jr. was born on February 14, 1835, in Salem, Massachusetts, to Albert and Sarah Browne. His father was a rope maker who owned $5,000 of real estate and $10,000 of personal property by 1860. He grew up and attended school in Salem, and he graduated from Harvard College in 1853. He supported the abolitionist movement, and he attempted to free fugitive slave Anthony Burns in May 1854. Courthouse guard James Batchelder was killed in the struggle, and Browne and several others were arrested. The charges were eventually dismissed.

 

He travelled to Germany soon afterward, and he earned a Ph.D. from the University of Heidelberg in 1855. He later served as a correspondent for the New York Tribune during the Utah War of 1857-58. He returned to Massachusetts in the late 1850s, and he joined John A. Andrew’s law office. Andrew was elected governor in 1860. During the Civil War, Browne served as Andrew’s military secretary.

 

He married Martha Griffith, and the couple apparently had no children. They moved to New York City, and he worked as an editor for the New York Herald. He returned to Boston in the 1880s, and he died there of diabetes on June 24, 1891.

SOURCES