Otway Burns - Early Life

Early Life

Burns was born at Queen's Creek, near Swansboro, North Carolina. He became a seaman after learning the trade at the ports in Swansboro and Beaufort, a nearby town situated in Carteret County. After acquiring the skills needed to become a merchant captain, Burns sailed along the East Coast of the United States, all the way north up to Maine. After his voyage, he married his cousin, Joanna Grant, on July 6, 1809. The next year, the couple moved to Swansboro. There, Joanna gave birth to Owen, the couple's only child.

Burns received financial support for his trading activities from Edward Pasteur, a physician and local political leader from New Bern. In the summer of 1812, just a month after the War of 1812 had commenced, Burns and Pasteur purchased a vessel in New York City for eight thousand US dollars, which Burns intended to use for privateering along the coast of The Carolinas. The 147-ton vessel, named the Zephyr, had been constructed four years earlier on the West River in Maryland. The Zephyr measured 85.5 feet (26.1 m) from bow (ship) to stern, had a beam of 22.5 feet (6.9 m) and a depth of almost nine feet (2.7 m). The vessel was armed with one pivot gun and between five and seven gun carriages. Also on board were a number of small arms: cutlasses, pistols, muskets, boarding pikes, pickaxes and blunderbusses. After rechristening the vessel as the Snap Dragon, Burns and Pasteur obtained official letters of marque for the vessel in New York on August 27, 1812. After sailing back to New Bern, the men sold their 50 shares in the ship at a price of US$260 per share to eight other investors from New Bern, Tarboro and Edenton.