Arizona weekly citizen., 1894-08-11
AN ARIZONA HERMIT,
A Romantic Character in the
 Mountains Of Final.
Bearskins Carpet His Hut-His Wall s Covered with Antlers-His
 Strange Ranch.

Living among the lonely fastnesses of the mountains of PiDal county, in a canyon with walls thousands of feet high, to which there is but entrances, is hermit, as secluded and as conteI t as any ot that mysterious world reno uncing class of men or any period, ancient or modern. His hut is one If the most inacces .ibIe in the world. Fifteen miles away IS the nearest wagon road, and for that distance the climb is hard and perilous mountain strail. Only by patient pack burros does this lovely man yet in h.s supplies, and ot these he has a train of score or more.
 He has a wagon. which was packed in on burros. One animal was laden with a wheel, another the tongue, etc.
 Reavis is the name of this strange character. Old, he Is, as all hermits are, dressed in rags. He wears hIs clothes til they go almost to shreds. His hairy breast he disdains to cover, and his shirt is open in front to the belt. Ills hair is white and hangs down hls breast. and his beard is long and wavy and venerable. He is we'll informed, keeping alive to the topics of the day, and knowing more of this busy world of our than many in the midst of it, Of books he has plenty, and he is keen ly alive to good literature. He came to Arizona from Californi2.
 Reavis lives in hut, with huge box firepisra ching almost to the roof. On tDc Il nr are OeaTskIns evary- where. In oae corner is a barrel of bear meat pickled down for winter use. Outside the hut are deer cutters nailed to the walls by the hundreds.
 The seclusion of Reavs IS not such
 madness AS it would first appear. Reavis
 is market gardener first saud between the gardening season be hunts. His hut is ID the midst of canyon, with huge precipitions walls. In this canyoa
 he has cleared eff fertile land, some fifteen acres. and this be has Cultivated
 to perfection. It is irrigated from a cold mountain spring. Tse altitude js hot, as ArIzona is usually hot. The vegetables are therefore hard and frm. and Reayis can almost command his OWI ptlC6S. NOut t.-GNO g0olS uO Has been there. ard in that time he has sold S30,000 worth of vegetables. One year, when the Silver King was booming. be got eight cents pound for his potatoes. Each burro load therefore brought him about $l0- One years crop netted him S5000. With the failure of the silver camps he goes to Florence and Tempe with his crops. He is now engaged m setting out 10000 cabbages.
 When the gardening season is not on be hunts. Reavis is 8 dead shot. As might be expected, he is keen and cautious. Every morning at d8ybreak he take his gun and goes to the head of his canyon to see if there is any tracks leading into his domain. At evening be does same. He has sn extra gun in the woods near, to use if surprised away from his house. He is familiar with every form Of dangerous animal life, and is popularly supposed to have met the wily Apache among the game that has is overcome. Formerly ne worked with his rife on his back.
 A few years ago Indians were bad in his locality. a boy being killed by them with ten or fifteen miles of his canyon. The Indians never disturbed Reavis, however, always avoiding and apparently fearing him. It is supposed there they are superstitions regarding him.