I was giving a boat tour the other day and as we passed thru the inlet between the Tiger's my guest, Bill McKenna asked "why was it named Tiger Island?"
Local lore has it that the island has the highest concentration of Rattlesnakes in North America. I'm not sure who took the survey or even if that's an accurate statement but a couple of years ago I had a customer yell, "there's a big fish back there!" as I entered Tiger Basin. I thought he had seen a Porpoise or a Tarpon roll but he said, "NO, it's swimming on the water!" I turned around and went back and sure enough, there as a huge Rattlesnake swimming from Little Tiger to Big Tiger. We snapped a couple of pictures as it slithered up onto the mud bank.
My wife found an old map published in November of 1769 that labels the island as Tyger Island(before that Spanish Maps called it Tigre Island) So at least that far back the island has been called Tigre/Tyger/Tiger Island. I have heard a rumor that someone probably saw some sort of cat - a big Bobcat or maybe a Florida Panther and called it Tiger Island, but my guest Bill sent me some interesting information he found on
Wikepedia.
Evidently the Tyger is an imaginary beast used as a charge in
heraldy. From Wikepedia, "
It is supposed to have its home in Hyrcania in Persia and its swiftness is supposed to have given its name to "tygris", the Persian word for "arrow", and to the swift River Tigris. If pursued by a tyger, it was supposed to be possible to get away from it by leaving a mirror, which would perplex the tyger. As a result, tygers are sometimes depicted looking in a mirror" . Maybe some aristocrat with Tyger in their coat of arms named it "Tyger"? Maybe some drunken sailor saw a mythical beast?
Digging deeper I see that the famous English poet William Blake wrote "The Tyger" in 1794, just a few short years after this map was published. Did William Blake ever visit Amelia Island? And as his ship passed between Tyger and Amelia, he was struck with inspiration? Probably not. But he didn't much care for how the English Monarchy was treating America and maybe he had gotten a glimpse of the map and maybe he was thinking of Rattlesnakes....
I've fished along Tyger Island (I'm gonna spell it like that from now on) and have never seen a cat of any kind. Of mammals, I've seen a huge Buck Deer, a wild Hog, Raccoon, and Salt Marsh Mink And in the water, Porpoise and Manatee. They're all mammals but I don't think any could be confused with a Tiger. Or a Tyger. UNLESS, there happened to be an extremely drunk sailor who made the sighting.
While my grandkids were visiting last August we beached on the East side of Tyger, just across from Old Towne and while the kids were beachcombing for shell I walked up onto a little knoll of woods to "explore". I was quite surprised to see an old brick "cistern" sunk into the ground. I have heard that the island was used as a quarantine area where those with Yellow Fever were sent to recuperate (or die). But I also see in Amelia Island Museum's archives the mention of a family that lived there and raised oranges. That's another story for historians to sort out.
There are plenty of old families that still live here at Amelia Island that surely have more information on Tyger Island - hopefully they will chime in and I will add those to this account. You can email me at lwpiper@comcast.net
