On A Whim Multi-Cache

This is St. Croix Landmarks Society´s first cache. I placed it on the grounds of the Whim Museum as a multi-cache, thinking this challenge will be a great adventure for kids and adults alike. I hope you enjoy the little romp around this historical Sugar Plantation on St. Croix. We will have more similar caches on other sites around the island that should prove just as adventurous and fun.

This is not a regular cache container, but you will recognize it when you spot it. Be sure to stick it back where you found it.

A Little History

For more than two centuries, from the 1730´s until the 1960´s Crucian Plantations, powered by enslaved and free Africans and Puerto Rican laborers, wrestled West Indian "Gold" – SUGAR, from every available inch of St. Croix. Across the fields, up the hills and down to the shores, cane was grown, cut and carted to factories for processing. At Estate Whim Museum, you will see and explore the remains of these bygone days when sugar was king.

"Whim is the oldest sugar plantation museum in the Virgin Islands. Its purpose is to increase the understanding of a colonial sugar plantation to both island residents and visitors. Exhibits and guided tours are designed to interpret the economics of a plantation, explain the procedures used in the cultivation and processing of sugar, and describe the everyday life of the people who lived and worked there.

Estate Whim is typical of theagricultural plantations originally laid out in the 1730's by the Danish West Indian Company. The first records of ownership were in 1743 and show cotton as being grown on the estate. By 1754 sugar had apparently become the main crop and so it continued until the 1920´s when sugar, long since an unprofitable industry on the island, gave way to cattle.

In 1932 the United States federal government purchased the entire plantation. For the next fifteen years a largely unsuccessful attempt was made to introduce the homesteading program to St. Croix and Whim was one of the areas chosen for this trial. Even though a failure in many ways, this venture in homesteading did, however, serve to break up the persistent large acreage ownership and started the trend that continues today throughout the island, of small private land holdings.

Twelve acres, containing the remains of most of the original plantation buildings were, in 1954, leased to the society that, today, manages the museum there. ..."

The Journey

This is a fairly easy multi-cache that will take you on a walking tour of the plantation and allow you to focus on some details that muggles might miss. Pay attention to the clues and enjoy the journey. This is a micro-cache that will be challenging to spot. The stages are to get you there. Your geocaching experience will help you find it.

On occasions, the overseers might place coordinates to a surprise second cache in the cache filled with goodies.

Visit the Museum Store while you are there and sign the guest Geocacher Log. Buy a gift while you are in the store. Whim is a small operation on a small island. It needs all the help it can get to keep up these wonderful historical sites.

SHOW THE HIDDEN WAYPOINTS TO VIEW THE STAGES

CONGRATULATION "fed" on being the FTF.

I am not sure why there are no takers on this hunt. I think it is one of the best on the island, but I am a little bias about that. Come on people, like fed says, getting on the grounds is free. Get out there and hunt.