The Portland daily press., 1893-07-25
MYSTERIOUS HERMIT.
The Lonely Life of Edward Chapman-The
Talisman that Revealed to Him Con-
spiracies of His Enemies-Wife and Chill
dren Driven Away Years Ago.

dren Driven Away Years Ago.
Edward Chapman, whose sudden death
was recorded yesterday, was the hermit
of Westbrook, and in his way a notable
character in that town for many years.
His home, or den, was on the road from
Saccarappa village to Stroudwater. This
road is called Spring street as it leaves
the, village; but it rapidly drops the city
airs and soon becomes very pretty and
picturesque country road The home OF
the hermit is about half way between
Westbrook and Stroudwater, rather near
er the former No extended description
is needed to enable the wayfarer to find
it. Ruin and Neglect have been tenants
too long to leave their domieile unmark
ed. The large, long barn has withstood
their ravages better than the house,
which is almost an utter ruin. Imagine
an old-fashioned, low-eaved farm house,
large upon the ground and of comfort
able dimensions, and you have the Chap
man homestead as it was once many
years ago, when merry children played
about its door or roamed in the beauti-
full fields that surround it. Imagine the
same house with every window and door
gone, with the roof crushed in as it
might be crushed had hundred-ton
boulder been dropped upon it, and you
have before your minds eye the home
stead as it appears today. The tall and
beautiful trees which surround and shade
it give it picturesqueness, which is
somewhat married, however, by little
shanty of more recent construction, put
up by the authorities of Westbrook when
the old house became too bad for the
hermit's habitation.
With the buildings are two hundred
acres of excellent farming land, which
Chapman titled fitfully and after his own
peculiar methods. He sometimes hired
help, but never kept them long; and both
to his help and his neighbors he was an
enigma. He was intimate with no one;
and with no neighbor was he ever on
good terms long. His fayorite compan-
ion for many years was q large old man
tie clock, such as Seth Thomas used to
make many years ago in Connecticut; and
this clock he made the talisman of his
life. One of his pet notions was that all
the world was conspiring against him;
and he declared that when these con-
spiracies were maturing the old clock
never failed to give him warning by
striking. This habit of the clock was
all the more wonderful since its weights
had disappeared many years ago, and it
had not kept time since.
Several years ago he decided that he
Would Pay no More Taxes.
The collector tried in vain to
collect them, and finally the farm
was sold for the taxes and bid
in by the city of Westbrook. The city
also, in order to make its title clear,
bought in a small mortgage. Then the
authorities tried to get the old man to go
to the poor house; but he absolutely re-
fused to 60. He declared that the place
was his, and that he should remain on it
in spite of the conspiracies of the whole
world. Believing him to be of unsound
mind, the authorities had Mr.. A. L.
Hawkes. appointed guardian for him; and
for the last two years Mr.. Hawkes. has in
quiet way seen that he was as comfort
able as it was possible to make him.
But in spite of all the guardian could
do, the old man lived in great squalor,
merely existing. His fitful notions pre-
vented the neighbors from doing much
for him; and indeed. many of them had
nothing at all to do with him. Many
strangers used to call and see him, drawn
thither by his fame as the hermit of the
region, and to them he used to expound
freely his favorite views. When anyone
protesting spiritualism would visit him,
the old man would be in high glee. for he
had great faith in spirits himself.
Edward Chapman was not always a
hermit. Forty years OF more ago he
married promising young woman and
began life in the old house which is now
ruin In the first years of their married
life family of children were born, and
there was apparently
Happiness and Prosperity
under the roof. When the gold fever
came on, Chapman caught it, and went
to California with bald of the early
miners.
Chapman did not remain away long,
and when he came back he was not COM
municative as to the luck he had had in
the new Ell Dorado. Some of the neigh
bors shook their heads when anyone
spoke ef the life he had led there; but no
one seems really to have known anything
about it.
The life he was leading at home suon
distracted attention from all speculations
as to his life in California. His notion
that all the world was conspiring against
him. so prominent in his later years, had
begun to develop even then. He turned
his resentment against his wife and the