Peter Browne (1594–1633), often modernized as Peter Brown, was a Pilgrim Father, a Mayflower passenger on its 1620 voyage that initiated the settlement of New England, and a signer of the Mayflower Compact, the first document of democratic and republican governance in the future United States of America.
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Peter Browne was probably born in January 1594 in Dorking, Surrey, England[1] to William Browne.[1][2] He was baptized in the local parish on January 26, 1594.[2] While his brothers John (who joined him in 1632 in Plymouth Colony), Samuel, and James became weavers,[2] his vocation is believed to have been a carpenter, machinist, or similar.[3] In 1619 or 1620 he was likely enlisted by William Mullins, as part of the "London contingent," whose trades and skills were necessary for the voyage of the Mayflower and the Speedwell and the creation of the colony.[4]
On September 6, 1620, Peter Browne boarded the Mayflower at Southampton, Hampshire, England.[1][4] With 102 fellow Mayflower passengers and crew, he intended to travel to "the Northern parts of Virginia" and establish an English colony near the mouth of the Hudson River.[4] Due to severe weather conditions, the ship was forced to anchor off of Cape Cod, where the first disembarkation occurred and where the Pilgrims determined to bind themselves as a democratically governed and administered colony loyal to England through the signing of the Mayflower Compact by all eligible men on behalf of themselves, their families, and their fortunes and property.[4] Peter Browne was one of the 41 men who signed it on November 11, 1620.[4]
A January 12, 1621 incident is recorded in Mourt's Relation whereby Peter Browne and John Goodman became lost in the woods after their dogs began to chase a deer. After a sleepless night, during which time both Browne and Goodman believed they heard lions (possibly mountain lions or other large mammals such as bears or coyotes), they successfully reoriented themselves and returned safely to the site of the village on the shore.[5] Being among the half of the Pilgrims who survived the first winter, Browne was present at the First Thanksgiving in the fall of 1621, the event that set the precedent for the American Thanksgiving holiday.[4][5]
By the middle of the 1620s, Browne had married Martha, the widow of ship's master Ford of the Fortune, who was a passenger of that second ship to arrive at Plymouth.[1] They had two daughters.[1][4] By 1630, Martha was deceased and Peter Browne remarried to a woman called Mary.[1] They also had two children together.[1][4]
The administration of the estate of Peter Browne on October 10, 1633,[1] indicates that he died sometime since the last reference to his property in the records. It is widely believed that he succumbed to the same sickness that spread through Plymouth Colony in the summer of 1633.[1][4] He was survived by his second wife Mary who acted as the executrix of his estate.[1] The Plymouth General Court determined that money was to be set aside for his daughters from his first marriage, whose care was taken up by neighbor John Donne.[6]
Peter Browne had four children, only three of whom survived to adulthood.[1] By his first marriage to Martha, widow Ford, he had daughters Mary and Priscilla.[1] By his second marriage to Mary, he had daughter Rebecca and the child who did not survive.[1] His daughters were:
Though often stated in biographies of John Brown, the renowned 19th century abolitionist, it has been definitively proven that the Brown family of Ancient Windsor, Connecticut are not descendants of Peter Browne the Mayflower Pilgrim.[1]
Many of the current descendants of Peter Browne have been located in the Tinkhamtown section of Mattapoisett, Massachusetts since the late 18th century.[1]