The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1885-10-16
A HERMIT'S STORY.
A Romance of the Flush Days OF
the Whale Oil City.

Old Fred Parker's fame as the Hermit
of Nantucket has attained additional
interest this season in the minds of Wis
itors- This has come about by the I'M
earthing of the romance connected with
the old mans early days. Up to 1880
every tourist to Nantucket took three
hours ride in springless, jolting. fish
w,gon out to Quidnit to see old Parker,
the leading curiosity of the island, to
whom, however. Billy Clarke, the his
toric town crier, was ever q close Sec
-ond. Quidnit consists of three houses
and various assortment of sand dunes
on the eastern edge of the island. 1t is
two miles north of Saukati Lighthouse.
and its people live mainly by sharking
and blue fishing in summer, chang
ing to codding and claiming in the
colder months. Down under the sand
hills, sheltered from the shore, and
partially obscured by waves of rank
gray green sedge and the purple bloom
of the shore pea. still stands the famous
hermitage of Quidnit, one-stery high.
Everything about it is the same as when
old Parker died, and plain marble
slab in its rear marks the old mans last
resting spot, for. according to his last
request. he was buried by the sounding
sea. His little property has passed into
the hands of thrifty descendant, who
reaps summer harvest from the curl
Gus in search of mementoes.
II, tho 4 alcy,p I,yS NJ tba ry-bo1o oil
CITY Fred Parker was tall, ambitious,
but rather gawky youth, who served
customers from behind the counters of
Mays busy grocery. He had a very
moderate salary for those flush times,
but his slender earnings were snugly in
vested in common with all here who had
money, in ships which were chasing the
whale. His ventures were successful,
and ne labored diligently st the desk,
ami scrimped and scraped to gather
enough to buy sixteenth share in the
bsrk Cynthia, which Nantucketers were
then fitting away for the oil fields of the
ocean. The oil excitement was at its
height. Money was pouring rapidly
into the strong boxes of the rich. and
business of all kinds was in a booming
state. Everybody in this now dead and
deserted old hamlet was on the lookout
fo- fresh ventures. In an ill-advised
moment the youth mortgaged the Parker
homestead, at the back of the town, to
enable him to command a still larger in
tereSt in the new bark. II she made any
sort of voyage she would repay him
his investment in a twelvemonth, and he
would be capitalist. With score of
other interested islanders he watched
the Cynthia unfold her snowy wings one
spring morning outside the bar. and sail
away to Greenland seas. Then he went
back to his desk and his work.
Time sped on. Meanwhile Fred
Parker had met and loved blue-eved
Mollie Coffin, > laughing rosy-cheeked
lass from Edgartown, on he neighbor-
ing Vineyard. who spent the summer
with her cousin at Nantucket They
met at one of the features of the island.
a pound party" and she was escorted
home that night BY the enamored grocer.
Intimacy followed. and young Parker
made her his confidant. He was madly
in love. When she left the island for
the Vineyard in the fall her hand WAS
pledged to him. They were to be
married when his ship came in.
Throsgh the long. cold winter thst
followed the struggling New Bedford
sail packet made only now and then a
trip to the Nantucket shore. But each
time it came and went it transferred let
tiers and pledges of love between young
Parker and his affi.nced. Her notes
Were tender and assuring. his responses
ardent and truthful. The Cynthia was
much overdue, he wrote the following
spring, but she was new vessel. and in
the most skillful hands. A competency
ana happiness could not fail to be in
store for them. Other months of wait
ing followed. Then there was break
in Mary's letters. The Young lover
-could not account for it. A two-weeks
gale prevailed, and then the mail boat
came, but he got DO word from her He
wrote her upbraidingly. After this
there came another fortnight's storm.
and the mail boat Was not seen again for
fifteen DAYS. When she did arrive she
brought bulky delayed mail, and the
i late New York and Boston papers were
eagerly sought for by the ship owners
and business men. In one of them Fred
Parker found dispatch from St. Johns.
N then over two months old. 1t
read as follows:
The Nantucket barkentine Cynthia. Ciinhy.
Haster, was abandoned three hundred miles
~ this port February Il, in gale. She was
Wareriogged, with seven hundred barrels oil
loose in the ho:d. On the night of the Is1h,
in storm, the Cynthia vas in collision with
the British brig Highland Mary. LAndon- from
Liverpool for New York. The brig lay by the
Cynthia the following day, and, the gale in
creasiPg. took the crew on and brought them
to this port The Cynthia vas Q new vessel.
She will probably break NO.
Vessel insurance was not popular in
those DAYS. There was not . cent on
Fred Parker's interest IN the Cynthia,