The History of Northeast Florida

Gerard John Schaefer grew up in an environment that today is recognized as a recipe for raising a serial killer.  His mother was overly doting towards him, and his father was an abusive alcoholic who was away from home much of the time.  He was born on March 26, 1946 in Neenah , Wisconsin .  His father, Gerard John Schaefer, Sr., was a traveling salesman.  His mother, Doris, was a housewife. He was the oldest of three children, the others being a girl, Sara, and a boy, Gary. When his father was home, he often belittled Doris .  He never missed an opportunity to make it clear that he thought young Johnny, as he was called, was useless and that he preferred his daughter to him.  On top of this, both parents were dogmatic Catholics who enforced strict adherence to their faith. The family relocated to Nashville , Tennessee , and shortly thereafter, they moved to Atlanta , Georgia .  Around the age of 12, as Schaefer approached puberty, his disturbing pro...

In 1947, Nassauville Road , across the Amelia River from Fernandina Beach , Florida , was a dirt road surrounded by deep woods.  The stillness of the forest remained undisturbed, decades before housing developments would replace it.  At night, the road leading from the hamlet of O'Neil in the north to the settlement of Seymour 's Point in the south was pitch black, as the tree canopy overhead choked out even the light of the stars.  A few homes and churches dotted the periphery, set too far back to cast any illumination onto the path. At 1:30 in the morning of August 13, 1947, Sidney Pope was driving to his home in Seymour ’s Point following his shift at the Fernandina pulp mill.  He took a shortcut and turned left on a path that intersected with Nassauville Road .  There he came upon a car parked on the side of the road, facing him with it’s headlights on.  As he drove past the parked car, he looked over and saw that it was unoccupied. Pope stopp...

On May 13, 1980, Judy Buenoano decided to take her three children (Michael – age 19, James – age 14 and Kimberly – age 13) on a fishing trip.  They drove to the East River, about a half-hour from their home in Gulf Breeze, Florida .  Kimberly was left on shore while the other three boarded a two-person canoe.  James was in the front, Judy was in the back, and Michael was seated between them in a folding lawn chair because he had just been fitted with braces on both his legs and his right arm. About two hours into the trip the canoe capsized throwing all three into the water.  Judy and James stayed afloat and were rescued by a passing boater.  Michael, having no function in his arms or legs and weighed down by his heavy metallic braces sank to the bottom of the river and died. This is the story of Judy Buenoano, dubbed “the Black Widow” by prosecutors and the press, who on March 30, 1998 became the first woman to die in Florida ’s electric chair. Judias (Ju...

For nearly five hundred years, people have dreamed about creating a canal that would link the Atlantic Ocean in Northeast Florida to the Gulf of Mexico .  As soon as early explorers realized that Florida was a peninsula, they looked for a way to traverse it by ship without sailing around its southern cape.  Over the years, the idea came and went, depending upon the desire of governments to improve commerce and national security. The 1500’s were a tumultuous time in Florida history.  Spain , France and England were all competing for domination in the new world.  When Spanish forces under the leadership of   Pedro Menendez de Aviles  rousted the French stronghold of Fort Caroline at the mouth of the St. Johns River in 1565 it secured Spain ’s stronghold on the northern Atlantic coast of Florida .  It also allowed Spain access to the interior of the Florida peninsula for further exploration and conquest. A French soldier captured during t...