George and Christel Bartchlett came down from Ohio during the
Depression, looking for work in Jacksonville. They found none, but
figuring that people always had to eat, they decided to become
commercial fishermen. The only trouble was they weren't all that
good with the rowboat they dropped their mullet net from. But they
had a tent with them the night a storm blew up the river, capsized
their boat and left them wet and lost on a big island in the river.
They set up camp and enjoyed themselves enough to come back on
weekends. Then they set up their tent permanently on Goat Island.
The tent became a cabin, the cabin became a home built with timbers
that washed up on the shore. Food was cooked over a wood fire;
water was hand-pumped from the ground.
The way he and his family see it, they owned that island through
squatter's rights. But somehow they lost ownership when the Army
Corps of Engineers cut a channel between Goat and Quarantine
islands, rerouting the main channel of the river. The family
finally moved off in 1964
Seven children were raised on that island, along with a herd of
goats.
Today the island is used by boaters and fishermen as a rest and
camp spot..
This cache was placed by a member of the
Northeast Florida Geocachers
Association
