Tag Archives: Fort George Island

Revisiting the Story of the Neff House and the Betz Sphere

Posted on December 9, 2022 | Leave a comment

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One of my favorite JaxPsychoGeo stories has to be that of the Nettleton Neff House. Abandoned in the hills away from public roads on Fort George Island, the house was born in tragedy a century ago. Neff committed suicide before he could live in the house. Only one family has ever lived here year-round and they ended up fleeing the conspiracy theorists and UFO chasers.

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Tagged Betz Sphere, Fort George Island, Mellen Greeley, Neff House, Nettleton Neff

The Napoleon Bonaparte Broward House at Pilot Town by Fort George Island

Posted on November 20, 2021 | 1 comment

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In its century and a half, the Napoleon Bonaparte Broward house has been empty more than lived in. It hoists its widow’s walk from the roof at Fort George Island. Built by a New York dentist in the 1870s, now the hq of the Timucuan Parks Foundation, the house will forever be associated with Broward, the Duval County sheriff, Jax city councilman, state representative and Florida governor who smuggled guns to Cuba and wanted to drain the Everglades and start racial apartheid.

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Tagged Batten Island, Bill McGoun Miami Herald, Broward Craig, Captain Gerald Johnson, Captain Joe Bie Johnson, Charlie Mitchell, Everglades drainage, Fort George Island, Frances P. Fleming, Fred Robertson, Ft. George Island, Gentleman Jim Corbett, George DuCottes, Governor Henry Mitchell, jax psycho geo, John Mathews, Jonathan Gilbert, Karl Zillgitt, Mountcalm Broward, N.B. Broward, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward House, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward III, Paul McGeehee, Pilot Town, Senator John Mathews, Three Friends steamboat, Tim Gilmore, Timucuan Parks Foundation, widow's walk

New Story: The Ancient Timucuan Community of Sarabay

Posted on June 19, 2021 | Leave a comment

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This is the ancient Timucuan Indian community of Sarabay. For more than two decades, UNF archaeologist Keith Ashley suspected it. Now he’s sure. European pottery found here matches notes in French and Spanish writings from the 1560s to the early 1600s. For the Mocama, the Timucuan people who lived here for thousands of years, European contact meant the beginning of the end.

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Tagged Auburn archaeology, Big Talbot Island, Daniella Kapuschansky, Denise Bossy, Fort George Island, Francisco Pareja, Grand Shell Ring, Jacque Le Moyne, jax psycho geo, Jean Ribault, Jody Gilmore, John Cottier, Keith Ashley, Laudonniere, Little Talbot Island, Majolica, Matt Soergel, McKenna Lenoir, Mocama, Mocama Indians, René Goulaine de Laudonnière, San Juan del Puerto, Sarabay, Theodor de Bry, Tim Gilmore, Timucua, Timucuan Indians, UNF archaeology, University of North Florida archaeology, William Jones, Zephaniah Kingsley

Looking Back at Last Year’s Hurricanes

Posted on September 12, 2018 | Leave a comment

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It’s been a year. As Hurricane Florence bears down on the Carolinas, and scientists prognosticate that Climate Change may bring about Category 6 hurricanes, I look back at the homage I wrote for those unsung heroes, the linemen, after Hurricane Irma.

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Tagged Comcast, flooding Jacksonville, flooding Riverside, flooding San Marco, Fort George Island, Hurricane Irma, J.K. Huysman, Jacksonville Electric Authority, JEA, linemen, live oak, Memorial Park, peacocks, Riverside Park, St Johns River, water oak, Winged Victory

Searching for Gonny’s Head, Finding the Ruins

Posted on March 22, 2017 | 1 comment

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I was joking when I told her I wanted to find the old man’s bearded head. She’d watched me for a moment, sly-smiled, and called me a resurrectionist.

When Gonny lived here, harvested his home, and built his house, small wild horses still roamed these coastal marsh islands.

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Tagged August Heckscher, Florida wild horses, Fort George Island, Gonny Gonzales, greenbrier, Heckscher Drive, jaxpsychogeo, John Bartram, Pine Island, Sisters Creek, T.H.E. Webb, tabby, tabby house, tabby ruins, Terrence H.E. Webb, Theodore Roosevelt Area, Tim Gilmore, Timucua, Timucua shell middens, Timucuan Ecological and Historical Preserve, wild horses, William Bartram, William Jones, William Marcus Jones, Willie Brown

A Jax Psycho Geo Halloween Special: The Neff House

Posted on October 30, 2016 | 1 comment

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For nearly a century, the stillborn house left behind by the suicide of Nettleton Neff has waited empty. Only one family has called the Neff House home. They called it “The Castle.”

When they heard inexplicable voices and doors opening and slamming shut throughout the house, they didn’t blame ghosts. They blamed the strange steel ball they found at the site of a brush fire by the house. Though the Betzes left the Neff House in the 1980s, UFOlogists and conspiracy theorists never stopped harassing them.

Meanwhile, the Nettleton Neff House yet molders among the hills on the most secretive roads at the back of Fort George Island. It’s is the loneliest structure in Northeast Florida.

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Tagged Betz Mystery Sphere, Betz Sphere, Fort George Island, Neff House, Nettleton Neff, Tim Gilmore