JACKSON P. BROWNING

By his daughter, Candace Browning Burch.

Pomona's first town marshal in 1894, Jack Browning was born in South Carolina, August 10, 1865. Jack Browning and his first wife were married there and had nine children. After his wife's death, he came to Florida and homesteaded forty acres of land at the south ending of Broward Avenue, adjoining Lake Echo.

Jack Browning was also a minister of the African Methodist Episcopal or A.M.E. Church and a farm laborer, using mules to harrow the citrus groves in the area.

At the time when he was marshal, there was a small jail just south of the town. Those jailed there were usually arrested for drunkenness--given time to sober up--and for stealing chickens.

Jack Browning’s second wife was Mary E. Pepper Browning, who was born in Palatka, May 17, 1876. She was a school teacher and taught in Pomona 1903-1905.

Jack and Mary Browning had five children: Myrtle Browning Thomas who married Fred Thomas, Ida Browning Davis, Susie Browning Burch, Johnnie Browning and Candace Browning Burch who was born in 1911. Candace now lives in Detroit, Michigan.

After Mary's death in 1923, Jack married Mrs. Fannie Davis, widow of Jerry Davis. [Fannie and Jerry Davis were the parents of Ruth Rowe whose memories appear in this book.] Jack and Fannie Browning had two children: a daughter named Alice and a child who was stillborn.

One of Jack and Mary's accomplishments was the donation of four acres of their land for the second and present black cemetery. The first black cemetery was located in a low spot in the Greenville area that became unsuitable because of a rising water table. Mary was buried in this cemetery--the Mt. Tamo Cemetery in 1923, at the age of 47 and Jack in 1937 at the age of 92.