Robert E. Harrill, called the “Fort Fisher Hermit,” was a popular hermit near Wilmington, North Carolina, from 1955-1972, receiving and entertaining visitors in the abandoned sea-side military bunker that he called home. He is the subject of several books and a documentary film. Two Web sites are: “Fort Fisher Hermit” at http://www.carolinabeach.com/history/memory/hermit.htm and “The Hermit Story” at http://www.hearlshill.freeservers.com/the_hermit_story.htm. There is a collection of Harrill’s manuscripts at the Library of East Carolina University: http://www.lib.ecu.edu/SpclColl/ead/vault/manuscripts/0428.html
Robert the Hermit
An 1829 pamphlet chronicling the life of a black fugitive slave who escaped the U.S. South to New England, where he became a hermit, is reproduced by the Libraries of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The Web site is: http://docsouth.unc.edu/robert/robert.html.
“St. Anthony in the suburbs?”
December 2001 article from the Christian Science Monitor about a variety of Christian hermits in the USA. One point made is that several living in urban areas are diligently saving money for rural isolation some day. Web page: http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1206/p15s1-lire.html
Sweets of Solitude
The Sweets of Solitude by Amos Wilson, called the “Pennsylvania hermit,” was printed in Boston in 1822. The only copy of the book is in the Free Library of Philadelphia, and has been scanned and placed on the Web at http://www.seclusion.com. It can be downloaded in .doc format, the whole book being 21 pages. Yahoo! calls it a work of fiction, and surely the melodramatic account reads that way, but the Webmaster assures me that he toured the cave in Indian Echo Cavern, Pennsylvania, where Amos Wilson, a hermit calling himself a Christian, lived for 19 years.
Recluse as Poet: on NPR
The recluse as a poetic device is featured in poet David Budbill’s book, which he discusses in an NPR interview. From the Web page: “Host Lisa Simeone talks with Vermont poet David Budbill, who reads from his book, Moment To Moment: Poems Of A Mountain Recluse. Budbill’s ‘recluse’ is Judevine Mountain, named after the mountain on which Budbill lives.” Program Web site: http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1120825.