Tag Archives: Willie Browne

The Story of Lone Star Stables, and the Legendary Claris Jaques

Posted on August 26, 2023 | Leave a comment

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Claris Jaques was a legend in the landscape. Even people who didn’t know her knew “the woman on horseback.” Her daughter, Joan Vinson, who’d ridden bareback behind her mother since before she could walk, came to know horses best when her parents got her Lightning, and when she witnessed “the Great Stallion Fight.” She buried a horseshoe at her mother’s headstone.

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Tagged Arlington Park Cemetery, Butterfly Festival, Claris Jaques, Claris Johnson Jaques, Cleve Powell, Cleveland Johnson, F.W. Bruce, Gary Jaques, George Jaques, Jacksonville Mayport and Pablo, Jacksonville pyramid, JM&P, Joan Vinson, Lone Star Stables, Sarah Louise Bruce Johnson, Spanish American War Battery, St. Johns Bluff, Ted Pappas, Tevlar, Tree Hill, Tree Hill Nature Center, Willie Browne

The Story of Tree Hill

Posted on August 19, 2023 | Leave a comment

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This is the story of Tree Hill, of impounding the creeks for a mill pond 200 years ago; the famed herpetologist and the boa constrictor; the woman on horseback who knew all the land’s secrets; the strange translucent pyramid; of the annual butterfly festival, of a thousand native butterflies taking flight at once.

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Tagged Antony Macy, Arlington Park Cemetery, Arlington Thrift Store, Claris Jaques, Cleve Powell, Cleveland Johnson, F.W. Bruce, Francis Richard, Gurney Kennedy, Jacksonville Mayport and Pablo, Lone Star Road, Lone Star Stables, Louise Johnson, Lum's Restaurant, Neisner's Variety Store, Red Bay Hammock, Red Bay Ranch and Dairy, Ross Allen, Silver Springs, Spanish American War Battery, Strawberry Creek, Ted Pappas, Tevlar, Tree Hill, Tree Hill Butterfly Festival, Tree Hill Nature Center, Valerie Kennedy, Wilfred Neill, Willie Browne

Recalling Book Burnings at Jacksonville University

Posted on June 2, 2023 | Leave a comment

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The 1970 Jacksonville University yearbook, the Riparian, was a collector’s item before the year was out. That fraternity members burned the book helped. So did the national news of JU’s president’s threatening to withhold the editor’s diploma. Half a century later, JU grads treasure it as an almost sacred object.

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Tagged Artis Gilmore, Delius House, Delius House Jacksonville University, Frederick Delius, Gurney Kennedy, Jacksonville University Riparian, jax psycho geo, JU Riparian, Memphis Wood, Pembrook Burrows, Rich LaVoy, Richard LaVoy, Riparian, Riparian Controversy, Robert Spiro, Robyn Moses, Tim Gilmore, Valerie Kennedy, Valerie Kennedy-Grisham, Willie Browne

The Myth of Ancient Floridian Giants

Posted on June 25, 2022 | Leave a comment

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The fiction that the Timucua and other indigenous Florida peoples were seven to nine feet tall spread rapidly in the 1950s. My mother believed it, told me we were descended. Another fiction. Willie Browne and Father Dearing believed it. D.B. McKay — Tampa mayor, newspaper editor, and chief organizer of the White Municipal Party — believed nine foot tall ancient Floridians populated the Garden of Eden. So where did these ideas come from?

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Tagged A Land Remembered, Athore, Cross and Sword, Cross and Sword: A Symphonic Drama of the Spanish Settlement of Florida, D.B. McKay, Father Frank Dearing, Fiction Fix, First Presbyterian Church Jacksonville, Fort Caroline, Fort Caroline National Memorial, Garden of Eden Florida, Great Fire of 1901, In Abraham's Bosom, Jacque Le Moyne, jaxpsychogeo, Jean Ribault, Juan Alonso Cavale, Mocama, Mocama Indians, Oriba, Patrick D. Smith, Patrick D. Smith A Land Remembered, Paul Green, Purple Petunia, René Goulaine de Laudonnière, Saturiwa, Theodor de Bry, Tim Gilmore, Timucua, Timucuan Indians, Timucuan Village U.S. Capitol, Wesley B. Plott, White Municipal Party, William Sears, William Sears archaeologist, Willie Browne

Willie Browne on the Lost Communities of Fulton and Lone Star

Posted on September 26, 2021 | 1 comment

January 1967, Old Willie Browne, who will soon donate his hundreds of acres of forest and bluff to conservation, discusses lost communities with Father Frank Dearing. You’ll find the two stories below:

1) Here’s the lost town of Fulton, Willie’s friend Captain Hole, stories of moonshiners and buried treasure, the digging up of Fulton Cemetery.

2) And here’s the lost black community of Lone Star, one of many in the Arlington area. Here, at least the cemetery remains. Its oldest occupant was born before Jacksonville.

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Tagged Andrew Atkinson Grant, B.G. Jarvis, Calypso Island, Captain Hole, Chaseville, Chaseville Arlington Jacksonville, Cleve Powell, Cosmo, Cosmo Arlington Jacksonville, Frank Dearing, Fulton, Fulton Arlington Jacksonville, Fulton Boat Ramp, Fulton Cemetery, Fulton Town, H. Frederick Hole, Henry Ferrar, Homoloa, Isaiah Hart, jax psycho geo, Jean Ribault, John C. Christian, Lone Star, Lone Star Arlington Jacksonville, Lone Star Cemetery, Lone Star Road, Lord “Harry” Peter Chamberlain, Lucy Ames Edwards, Mary Hole, Mill Creek at Kendall Town, Mt. Zion Methodist Church, R. Fulton Cutting, Reverend Frank Dearing, Sanchez Grant, Saxon Browne, Shipyard Creek, Shipyard Road, St. Johns Bluff, Tim Gilmore, Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve, Willie Browne, Woodsong Loop West

New Story: Round Marsh (by the Willie Browne Trail)

Posted on March 4, 2021 | Leave a comment

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People have theorized Round Marsh the result of a meteor, others that it’s the remains of a British rice paddy and a 4,000 year old cypress pond. Willie Browne led friends on hikes around the pond and archaeologists have combed its shores. The World War II airplane and its pilot, meanwhile, are still in the marshes to the north. Willie Browne often said he could hear “the thunder of horsemen racing by in the distance,” when no one was there.

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Tagged Bill Goodyear, Colorinda Creek, conservation history, Craig Morris, Ellis and McClure, Florida history, Fort Caroline, Frances Brewster Smith, Jacksonville history, Jay Huebner, John Nathan Spearing, Keith Ashley, Lorraine "Rainy" Clarke, National Park Service, Nature Conservancy, Round Marsh, Saxon Browne, Shell Mount, St Johns Town, Sub-Tropical Exposition, Theodore Roosevelt Area, Tim Gilmore, Timucuan Ecological and Historical Preserve, William Jones, Willie Browne, Willie Browne Trail

50 Years Ago, Willie Browne Died

Posted on December 20, 2020 | 1 comment

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This week marks 50 years since Willie Browne died. The hermit was famous in his own time, but his gift of hundreds of acres to The Nature Conservancy has made him a kind of conservationist saint. If you visited his cabin in what’s now the Theodore Roosevelt Area of the Timucuan Preserve, he always knew when you’d stepped onto his land.

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Tagged Bill Goodyear, Carolyn Gentry, Craig Morris, Eliza Browne, Fort Caroline, Frances Brewster, Frances Smith, Frances Smith Brewster, George Carter, Joan Vinson, John Nathan Spearing, Lynne Raiser, Margaret Spearing, Nature Conservancy, Round Marsh, Saxon Browne, Theodore Roosevelt Area, Timucuan Ecological and Historical Preserve, William Browne, William Goodyear, Willie Browne, Willie Browne Theodore Roosevelt Area, Willie Browne Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve, Willie Browne's cabin

Tag Archives: Willie Browne

The Story of Lone Star Stables, and the Legendary Claris Jaques

The Story of Tree Hill

Recalling Book Burnings at Jacksonville University

The Myth of Ancient Floridian Giants

Willie Browne on the Lost Communities of Fulton and Lone Star

New Story: Round Marsh (by the Willie Browne Trail)

50 Years Ago, Willie Browne Died

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