George Huntington Browne (January 6, 1818 – September 26, 1885) was a

U.S. Representative The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they c ...

from

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the List of U.S. states by area, smallest U.S. state by area and the List of states and territories of the United States ...

. Born in

Glocester, Rhode Island Glocester is a town in Providence County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 9,974 as of the 2020 census. The villages of Chepachet and Harmony are in Glocester. Putnam Pike ( U.S. Route 44) runs west through the town center of Gl ...

, Browne attended the public schools and was graduated from

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

in 1840. He studied law. He was

admitted to the bar An admission to practice law is acquired when a lawyer receives a license to practice law. In jurisdictions with two types of lawyer, as with barristers and solicitors, barristers must gain admission to the bar whereas for solicitors there are dist ...

in 1843 and commenced practice in

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...

. Browne was elected a representative to the so-called "Charter" General Assembly of Rhode Island in 1842. At the same time was elected a representative to what was termed the "Suffrage" legislature and attended the latter. He served as member of the general assembly under the constitution 1849-1852. He was appointed United States district attorney in 1852 and served until 1861 when he resigned. He served as delegate to the Charleston and Baltimore Democratic National Conventions in 1860. He served as delegate to the

Peace Conference of 1861 The Peace Conference of 1861 was a meeting of 131 leading American politicians in February 1861, at the Willard's Hotel in Washington, D.C., on the eve of the American Civil War. The purpose of the conference was to avoid, if possible, the secess ...

, held in Washington, D.C., in an effort to devise means to prevent the impending war. Browne was elected as a candidate of the Democratic and Constitutional Union Parties to the Thirty-seventh Congress (March 4, 1861 – March 3, 1863). He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1862 to the Thirty-eighth Congress. He declined the appointment as Governor of the Territory of Arizona in 1861. He entered the

Union Army During the American Civil War, the Union Army, also known as the Federal Army and the Northern Army, referring to the United States Army, was the land force that fought to preserve the Union (American Civil War), Union of the collective U.S. st ...

as colonel of the Twelfth Regiment, Rhode Island Volunteer Infantry, October 13, 1862, and served throughout the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

. He served as member of the State senate in 1872 and 1873. Browne was elected chief justice of the supreme court of Rhode Island in May 1874 but declined the office. He died in

, September 26, 1885. He was interred in Swan Point Cemetery.

Sources

{{DEFAULTSORT:Browne, George Huntington 1818 births 1885 deaths Brown University alumni Rhode Island Constitutional Unionists Constitutional Union Party members of the United States House of Representatives Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Rhode Island 19th-century American legislators United States Attorneys for the District of Rhode Island Burials at Swan Point Cemetery