Virtual Rewards 3.0 - 2022-2023
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between March 1, 2022 and March 1, 2023. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 3.0 on the Geocaching Blog.
Octavia Hatcher was 20 years old when she gave birth to her first child, Jacob, in early 1891. Jacob almost immediately died. Octavia sank into a long depression, then a coma. She "died" during a hot spell -- May 2, 1891 -- and was quickly buried.
Several days after Octavia’s death, other people began suffering from the same coma-like symptoms that Octavia exhibited at the time of her death. This illness was a sort of sleeping sickness that was brought on by the bite of a certain fly. When news of this began to spread, James Hatcher and members of his family (some of them doctors) began to worry that this may have been the same illness that Octavia had contracted. Their fears turned to panic as they realized that she may have been buried alive!
It is told that on the anniversary of her death her statue would spin around and face away from the city of Pikeville, like she was turning her back on the city for allowing her to be buried alive.
See more here.
Take some time to look around and pay respect to those at rest.
Also please limit your searching for this cache during daylight hours.
The Virtual Challenge.
Go to the given coordinates.
Include in your log, a picture of you, your gps, or your geocaching name written on a piece of paper along with the date of your claim with Octavia clearly in the background.
OR...
If you are shy or cannot post a picture for some other reason, please message me what is written on the small marble stone on the ground inside the northeast corner of the fence enclosing Octavia's grave (you do not have to enter inside the fence to see the stone). Do NOT include your answer in your log.
Congratulations to GR8CACHERS for FTF!!
This is an official Kentucky Spirit Quest cache.
