The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1895-03-27
LIVED IN 4 HOL1oW TREE.
A Mysterious Hermit Hunter Who Was
Found in the Ozarks.
from the Springfield MOI Dlspatch.l


[From the Springfield (N1o9 Dlspatch.l
The first settlers of Greene county,
who came from Tennessee to southwest
Missouri about sixty years ago, We're
accustomed to send their stock down to
the White river canebrakes on the APP
proach of winter. Both horses and
cattle would live from December till
March on the nutritious young cane
that then grew so luxuriantly in all the
bottom lands along the border of the
state. Near the mouth Of every stream
emptying into White river there was
excellent winter pasture for stock ard
in some of the larger bottoms of what
is now fancy county the canebrakes
were, tradition says, almost equal to
those of the lower Mississippi lands a
half century ago
The business of herding the stock in
this wild region was usually intrusted
to young men and boys, who enjoyed
the adventure of camping out and
hunting the big game which then
abounded in the White river country.
From Springfield to the Arkansas line
there were only a few white settle
ments at that time, and deer and wild
turkeys could be found every day in the
wear on any quarter section Of the
country, to say nothing about bear,
wolves, catamounts and panthers,
which then made the southern slopes of
the Ozarks their constant home The
young herders who went to the cane
No nd
take along a supplyof corn meal and a
few simple cooking vessels, depending
on their guns to furnish the meat need
ed during the winter. The stock re-
quired but little attention on account
of the richness of the range and the
men spent most of the time hunting
1t was while spending a winter in
this way on Big Beaver, near White
river, about ten miles northeast of the
present town of Forsyth, that party
of Greene county boys found a hermit
hunter, over whose life there hung a
mystery. The stranger lived alone in
the midst of this rugged wilderness,
and his habitation was a hollow syca-
more tree, a giant of the mountain for
est. One of the young men who made
the acquaintance of that lonely inhab-
liant of the southwest Missouri from
tier, over half century ago, is still
living in Greene county, and from him
the correspondent heard this story
The hermit was clothed in deer skin
from head to foot, and subsisted entire
ly on game and wild honey, the latter
delicacy being then very abundant in
the White river forests. The hunter
gave his name as Sloan, and said he
came from Virginia. He was tall
handsome and intelligent, and had
few books in his singular dwelling
place. The tree in whose capacious
hollow the hermit found lodging was
several miles from any white settle
ment 1t was near the camp of the
herders on the prairie plateau around
Springfield and the boys saw the man
frequently during the winter He
talked freely about hunting adven-
lures and some matters Of history, but
said nothing respecting his own person
al antecedents. He was man of good
education for those times, and had the
manners of a gentleman who had been
familiar with refined society. Sloan
lived for some time in the hollow tree,
and finally moved out into little pole
house which he built near the syca-
more. Here he lived for a number of
years, hunting deer and bear every
day, until fate ended his strange career
in mystery. One day party Of hunt
ers passed by the hermits hut and