# Bramwell Olcott Bartine — Can Such Things Be? character guide

> Bramwell Olcott Bartine in Can Such Things Be? by Ambrose Bierce.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Bartine, the late Bramwell Olcott Bartine

**First appearance:** 0039-john-bartine-s-watch

## Snapshot

A man who cannot look his own watch in the face, and who tells a visitor why the timepiece his Tory great-grandfather wore came home without him.

## Who they are

John Bartine sits by the fire and refuses, with a mysterious reluctance, to answer so simple a question as the time of night, until his guest's impudence forces the story out of him. The watch has been in his family for three generations, ever since his great-grandfather Bramwell Olcott Bartine, a Colonial Tory, was arrested one night by Washington's rebels and marched into a darkness that swallowed him forever. Weeks later the watch was found on the porch, wrapped in paper bearing the name of the old man's only son, and Bartine is wearing it still.

## In the story

### [John Bartine's Watch](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/can_such_things_be_se/chapters/john-bartine-s-watch)

John Bartine's great-grandfather, a Colonial Virginia Tory who was arrested by American rebels and disappeared.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/can_such_things_be_se/characters/bramwell_olcott_bartine
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/can_such_things_be_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/can_such_things_be_se/characters