Bill Mattila was called the “hermit of Brockway Mountain.” There are pictures of his cabin, near Copper Harbor, Michigan, on a message board, plus several messages from people who remember him or just wanted to add a comment. URL: http://www.pasty.com/discuss/messages/313/893.html
Minnesota hermit: Dorothy Molter
Dorothy Molter (1907-89) — sometimes spelled Moulter — lived as a hermit in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, in the Superior National Forest, in northern Minnesota. She was the subject of a LIFE magazine profile on hermits and a book by Bob Cary entitled Root Beer Lady, the Dorothy Molter Story (Duluth: Pfeiffer-Hamilton, 1992). Molter was called the “Rootbeer Lady” because she offered her home-made root beer to visitors and travelers. A museum near Ely preserves her cabins and effects. URLs: http://www.canoecountry.com/dorothy and http://www.irontrail.org/Attractions/museums/Dorothy+Molter+Museum/.
Sky Farm Hermitage
Sky Farm Hermitage, founded by Fr. Dunstan Morrissey, offers cottages for private retreats in Sonoma, California. The Web site offers photos of the grounds and facilities, information for reservations and directions, plus biographies of the resident hermits. URL: http://www.skyfarm.org.
Hawaii hermit, Fr. Louis
We communicated with Fr. Louis, a retired Orthodox bishop living in Hawaii as a hermit, some time ago, so it is interesting to see how his one-page Yahoo! site (originally titled “Phoney Hermits” and still a page there) grew to include many pages of thoughts, rants, and life details. Some all-caps text and lots of religious controversy await visitors. URL: http://www.geocities.com/hermit3712/.
Hermits in Art: Sargent
The paintings of John Singer Sargent exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY) in summer 2000 and later sites included “The Hermit,” painted by Sargent in Italy in 1908 and with the added title “Il Solitario.” An image of the painting can be viewed at the John Singer Sargent Virtual Gallery http://www.jssgallery.org/Thumbnails/Sargent_Paintings1908.htm.