The first name and other pertinent information about Capt. Brown as a person is not known. No record of a Theodore Brown as a master has been found nor has any relevant information connected with a person of that name been located. As noted below, it is possible that his first name in Theophilus, not Theodore.
AOWV records that he was the third replacement master for one voyage of one ship with a home port of New London.
DELAWARE (AS1198): (bark, 300 tons, built in Damariscotta ME in 1848, lost off Baja California on Christmas Day, 1860). She departed on July 14, 1852 for the North Pacific and returned on May 8, 1857. AV03659
The initial master was Caleb Holt (AM2657), succeeded by B.F. Homan (AM2662) and Isaac Allen, (AM0118), all of whom left the ship, circumstances not known.
Theodore’s identity appears confused with Theophilus Morgan Brown (AM0679) who served as master of ELECTRA (AS1261) on a voyage from June 1854 to September 1857 (AV04117). The dates of that voyage largely overlap with the dates of DELAWARE’s voyage. There is no record of Theophilus leaving ELECTRA before the end of her 1954 voyage. The original microfilm of the handwritten crew list for DELAWARE’s voyage (MSM NA 362, Roll 50) shows as the second person on the crew list “Theophilus Brown”, resident of Ledyard CT (Note: Theophilus was a resident of Groton). It may be that the replacement master was a real individual named Theodore Brown or that “Theodore” with his first name incorrectly recorded was Theophilus. The records are unclear.
For sources see sidebar and sources mentioned in text.
George Shaw (Mystic Seaport Museum) February 2024