A Western Panorama, 1849-1875, the Travels, Writings and Influence of J. Ross Browne on the Pacific Coast, and in Texas, Nevada, Arizona and Baja California, as the First Mining Commissioner and Minister to China [John Ross Browne]

328 pp. Includes black-and-white illustrations and fold-out map. Browne, John Ross (11 February 1821–08 December 1875), writer, world traveler, and government agent, was born in Beggars Bush, near Dublin, Ireland, the son of Thomas Egerton Browne and Elana Buck. His father was a refugee from British rule. As the editor of three publications, Thomas Browne satirized British tithing measures and earned the enmity of the Crown, a fine, and a jail sentence for “seditious libel.” J. Ross Browne, as he would always be known publicly, arrived with his parents in America in 1833. He spent his early years in Louisville, Kentucky, where his father ran a seminary for young women, which Ross attended along with a handful of young boys. Aside from a few dead-end months at the Louisville Medical Institute, Browne enjoyed no higher education. But, thanks to the intellectual environment of his home and his native intelligence, self-education served him well through life. His early interests were writing, drawing, and traveling. He found writing to be a gift, to which he added a modest talent in sketching. His art, mainly light caricature, remained that of an amateur, but his sketches were so clever and humorous that, when properly enhanced by professional artists and engravers, formed the illustrations for many of his magazine articles and books of later years. Especially important to Browne was travel. He would spend a quarter-century of his prime in this activity. He started out before he was seventeen by making a 600-mile “ramble” by land, followed by one of 1,600 miles by water, working as a deckhand on a flatboat between Louisville and New Orleans. After three years as a police reporter for the Louisville Advertiser and as a correspondent for Cincinnati and Columbus papers, Browne became determined to have a career that would permit him to travel in reasonable comfort. He chose stenography and shorthand and worked as a reporter in Washington (1841–1842) for the Congressional Globe. He also contributed a few stories to Graham's Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine, edited by Edgar Allan Poe. Browne planned to sail to Europe but, lacking funds, had to ship out instead as an ordinary seaman on a New Bedford whaler. His passage to the Indian Ocean was ruined by the bark's bully of a captain, and Browne bought his freedom on the island of Zanzibar. Browne used humor to expose the abuses of whaleship crews and illustrated his account with his own sketches. The articles were published in Harper's Monthly Magazine and later became chapters of his book Etchings of a Whaling Cruise (1846), a sequence that would be repeated several times in his long association with the magazine and Harper & Bros. Reviews were flattering and that of the American Review compared Browne favorably with Richard Henry Dana of Two Years Before the Mast. Herman Melville reviewed Etchings for Literary World in 1847, and the book influenced his writing of Moby Dick. In 1844 Browne married Lucy Anna Mitchell; the couple had ten children, of whom eight lived to maturity. Although his work in the Senate had given him a jaundiced view of Washington politics, common sense led Browne to accept in 1845 a position as clerk in the Treasury Department. His intelligence and uncompromising honesty led to his being given the post of private secretary to Robert J. Walker, secretary of the Treasury. However, when the California gold rush attracted his attention, Browne persuaded Walker to appoint him as a third lieutenant in the U.S. Revenue Service with the assignment of trying to prevent the mass desertion of American merchant seamen in San Francisco's harbor. He arrived in San Francisco on 5 August 1849 after a voyage made interesting by a mutiny and a stopover at Juan Fernández Island, off Chile. His adventures led again to articles in Harper's Monthly followed by chapters, this time in his popular book Crusoe's Island (1864). The revenue cutter Lawrence, which would have been his “base,” was delayed getting to San Francisco, and Browne took a temporary commission as inspector of postal services, with instructions to establish post offices between San Francisco and San Luis Obispo. The only post office that he founded, however, was in San Jose. Because Browne was believed to be the only man on the West Coast skilled in shorthand, he was appointed official reporter, or recording secretary, of the first California Constitutional Convention, held in Monterey in 1849, and was paid the princely sum of $10,000. The official document he compiled, Report of the Debates in the Convention … (1850), was published in a Spanish-language edition the following year. Browne also made good use of his experiences on the trail to Monterey and San Luis Obispo, embroidering them with fictional touches for “A Dangerous Journey,” published in Harper's in 1862 and two years later as part of Crusoe's Island. A Dangerous Journey was reprinted as a book in 1950, the same year that the Book Club of California published Browne's letters of the period as Muleback to the Convention. Thanks to his convention windfall, Browne was finally able to become a world traveler. He made a base for his family in Florence and roamed Europe and the Near East. Out of these travels came his book Yusef (1853). Joaquin Miller wrote of it, “If there had been no Yusef, there would have been no Innocents Abroad” by Mark Twain. When he returned to California, Browne settled his family permanently in Oakland, then accepted an appointment as a confidential (secret) agent for the Treasury Department. From 1853 to 1860 he uncovered much incompetence, waste, corruption, and fraud in customhouses, the San Francisco mint, and rancherías (Indian reservations) in California. In 1857 he was asked to investigate and report on the Indian wars in Oregon and Washington territories. In 1860 he visited the mines of Washoe (Nev.). After another European sojourn, this time in Frankfurt, which led to two books, Browne tried lecturing (1862) but found it disappointing. He was pleased when his former boss, Walker, got him a commission in the Indian Service. Browne's combined interests in Indians and mining led him to accompany Charles D. Poston to Arizona Territory in 1863. He later revisited both Nevada and Arizona and wrote articles and perhaps his best book, Adventures in the Apache Country (1869). Having become an expert on minerals, Browne had a post created for him, U.S. commissioner of mines and mining. As commissioner, he compiled two major reports that stressed the mineral resources of the states and territories west of the Rockies. In 1868 Browne was honored with appointment as minister to China, but as usual, he vigorously stated his opinions—which were not those of the State Department—and was recalled less than a year later. Back home, he entered the real estate business and represented mining interests in London and an English syndicate interested in the reclamation of overflowed (intermittently flooded) lands in the Sacramento Valley, but he was less successful as a businessman than as a writer or government agent. Returning by ferry from his San Francisco office, he was stricken with appendicitis and died in the Oakland home of a friend, unable to make it to his home, “Pagoda Hill.”--American National Biography