Tag Archives: Willie Browne

The Myth of Ancient Floridian Giants

Posted on June 25, 2022 | Leave a comment

Click below for this week’s story, or navigate the city through the search bar or the direction buttons at the top of the page:

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?

Leave a comment

Posted in Uncategorized

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.

Posted in Uncategorized

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

Click below for this week’s story, or navigate the city through the search bar or the direction buttons at the top of the page:

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in Uncategorized

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

Click below for this week’s story, or navigate the city through the search bar or the direction buttons at the top of the page:

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.

Posted in Uncategorized

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