Marrying Cornelius

Sometime between 1860 and 1865, Emmaline passed away. On the 23rd of August, 1865, Cornelius got re-married, to Sophiria Ann Powers, whose mother’s maiden name was Daught.

Less than a year later, on the 22nd of June, 1866, Sophiria gave birth to a daughter, Nancy Grand Browning, in the New Hope community in Henderson County, Texas.

On the 24th of September, 1868, a son, Richard Rankin Browning, was born and about two years later, she gave birth to a third child, named Jesse.

Between 1870 and 1871, Cornelius served as Justice of the Peace in Henderson County. I have seen a "Marriage Book" in the library at Athens, which is the Henderson County seat which shows that Cornelius performed many of the marriages listed there. All of those little towns were less than ten miles from each other, but on horseback or by foot, ten miles was farther than it is today by car.

Some time around 1870, Sophiria Ann died of "consumption.” It was probably not more than a year after her death that Cornelius married his third wife, Martha E. (Betty) Russell, who herself was the widow of a doctor who had died of "Yellow Fever.”

Betty brought one daughter—Willie—to the marriage, and on August 2, 1872 she and Cornelius had the first child together, a daughter they named Nealy. Nealy, however, died three weeks later, on August 26th.

Two years later, on March the 2nd, 1874, she gave birth to a son, Lewis Reagan Browning.

Two years after that, on the 24th of April, 1876, Betty gave birth to another daughter, making Betty the third of Cornelius’s wives to bear both a son and a daughter.

Like her older sister Nealy, Betty’s daughter Allie did not have a long life, dying on the 21st of July, 1881, when she was only five years old. Betty’s son Lewis Reagan, meanwhile, lived to be 77 years old, and died on the 13th of August, 1951.

Both Nealy and Allie are buried in the Reynolds Family Cemetery in New York, Texas.

When Allie and Nealy were buried in the Reynolds cemetery, John Daniel Browning, Cornelius’ oldest son and my grandfather, had not yet married Nancy Ann Reynolds, so I guess the Reynolds and Brownings were neighbors. Our Reynolds ancestors are also buried in the same cemetery. I have been to that cemetery; it has not been cared for and the grave markers are hard to find.

In 1876, Cornelius was again working as Justice of the Peace in Henderson County. A charter member of the New York Masonic Lodge No. 445 (446), in Henderson County, he also taught school, farmed and was also the County Tax Assessor.

He still held his post as Justice of the Peace in 1879, when he died on the 9th of November. He was buried with his daughters in the Reynolds Family Cemetery.

After Cornelius’ death, Betty—his third wife—married Bob Stewart, her third husband. Betty and Bob had two children, Hall, and Burta.

My son Jim has the photograph of Cornelius framed on his wall in Oklahoma.