10-05-2025
Nearly 70 years later, message in a bottle found in waters of Hatteras Village
HATTERAS VILLAGE, N.C. (WAVY) — You never know what you may find on a walk along the water.
For a man on the Outer Banks, it went far beyond his imagination. He found a message in a bottle — a message from the past.
Even better, he figured out where it came from.
1945 message in a bottle survives voyage from Little Creek to Florida
Usually when 10 On Your Side visits the Outer Banks, it's to cover what Mother Nature takes away.
But here in Hatteras Village, something was returned.
Fortunately, Michael Garrett was walking his dog along a pond when he saw a crab with something in its claw.
'He let go of this little bottle about the size of my thumb,' Garrett said. 'And I came running over there, and I walked out on that pipe there and reached out and grabbed him and the bottle at the same time. He was a great big blue crab.'
After wrestling the bottle from the crab, he discovered a small bottle with a piece of paper inside.
'And it had a date on the message — 1956,' Garrett said. 'And it had a name on it, Betsy Willis, which is my neighbor's sister.'
Garrett gave it to his neighbor, who, in turn, gave it to his brother, Virgil Willis, who runs Lee Robinson's General Store, right around the corner.
'That's my sister, Betty Jean Willis,' Virgil Willis said. 'And the actual bottle was surprisingly clean. My sister said she played out here on the shore side, probably threw it in the water or a ditch.'
The bottle and its contents were mailed to his sister, Betty, who now goes by Betty Willis Fisher, who lives in Jacksonville, N.C.
'I'm pretty positive we would have thrown it in the Pamlico Sound right there in Hatteras Village, right behind where the present Lee Robinson's General Store is,' Fisher said by phone from her home in Jacksonville.
She was around 11 years old in 1956.
'We went down pretty much every day,' Fisher said. 'In the summertime, we go down just to cool off, lay in the water play in the water splashing around, borrow somebody's clam boat and take a little ride.'
As for the bottle, no one knows how it survived its nearly-70 year journey through hurricanes and nor'easters, or how it floated back into her life, but now, she plans to hold onto it this time and keep it safe.
'Just a little treasure to leave to somebody,' she said.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
