William Garl Browne (1823-1894)
Oil on canvas, 1857
Gift of the Partnership for New York City, Inc.
NYSM 2003.41.74

Otway Henry Berryman was the commanding officer of the USS Dolphin, which in 1853 was the first vessel to obtain soundings on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the undersea plateau connecting the continents of Europe and North America. This discovery enabled the successful development of the first trans-Atlantic telegraphic cable (reference The Atlantic Cable Projectors by Daniel Huntington, NYSM 2003.41.3). Berryman died aboard the USS Wyandotte off Pensacola, Florida, seven days before Ft. Sumter was fired upon, possibly sparing him the grief of a family divided by civil war. A Virginian, he was a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy at his death. His daughter Alice was married to William J. Bromwell, Chief Clerk of the State Department of the Confederacy.

English-born William Garl Browne (a.k.a. William Garl Browne Jr.) is remembered for his portraits of the Old South, particularly of Virginians and North Carolinians. Prolific and well-known in his day, his body of work fell into relative obscurity after his death.