Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1884-03-06
A RECLAIMED HERMIT.
How a Connecticut Man Passed For.
ty.fOur Years in Solitude.
PHILADELPHIA Press.

philadelphia Press.l
Austin Sheldon, the famous Pike county
| hermit, has abandoned his cave in the
mountains and returned to his birthplace
in Connecticut to spend the remainder of
his days. For many years "Old Sheldon,
the hermit" has been one of the curiOsities
of this region, and his cave has been visited
by thousands of people. He was born at
Sunnyside, Conn, in 1902, and is conse-
quently in his eighty-second year. In his
boyhoOd he learned the blacksmith's trade,
and, arriving at mans estate, married to a
comely respectable young woman, who be-
came insane shortly after their union. Shell
don put his wife in private asylum,
where he supported her until she died In
1910 he came to Pennsylvania, where he
expected to engage in stOckraising, but he
fell into the hands of some of the wild
land agents who infest this region, and they
relieved him of all his cash and decided him
a tract of wild land in Lehman Township
that was not worth ten cents an acre.
When Sheldon saw how he had been swim
died out of his hard earned money he raved
like mailman and partly lost his reason.
He took up his abode in cave on the
premises, and there he has remained ever
until within the last few years. In 1878
he became enamOred of pretty girl living
not many miles from his subterranean home
and asked her to marry him. She indig-
nantly refused, and her parents forbade
him to come near their house. Since that
time the old man has been thinking of
coming to Connecticut, and when a few
days ago his sister, woman eighty years of
age-his only living relative-came to see
him, she induced him to accompany him to
Sunnyside where she has comfortable
home.
When, in 1877, the writer first visited
hermit's cave the recluse was most hOIri
BILE looking object, although since then
his appearance has altered for the better.
He is as deaf as a post and those who de-
sire to question him are obliged to do so in
writing. The cave in which he spent for
ty-four years is twelve by fourteen feet,
with a gravel floor. The furiture consists
of four blocks of wood, which serve the
purpose of table and chairs, and one old
rocking-chair in which he sleeps. He has
not slept in bed for forty y-three years, he
says. He has about half an acre of ground
which he calls his garden, and in i: he
grows little corn anG few potatoes
Upon these vegetables and upon fruit, dried
roots and such game and fish as he can
trap, the old man has lived for nearly half
a century.
He has an old Bible which he reads every
day, and he can quote chapter after chap
ter with wonderful accuracy. For thirty
six years the old man never shaved or had
his hair cut. He wore curious looking
clothes which he kept fastened to his per-
son with hicory "withs" secured about his
waist. He never wore hat. For his de-
fense against wild beasts he carried long
knife, sharp as razor, which he made by
grinding down an old file. He never read
a newspaper since he came to Pike county;
never heard of the civil war and never
heard of Lincoln or Grant. He asked who
they were and what they did, one day last
summer.