The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1895-04-10
HIS HOME A HOLLOW TREE.
The Romance Of the Hermit Hunter Of
the Ozark Mountain.

HIS HOME A HOLLOW TREE.
The Romance Of the Hermit Hunter OF
tho Ozark Mountains.
The business of herding stock In
this wild region was usually intrust-
ed to the 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 settlements then, and deer
and wild turkeys could be found
every day in the year 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 canebrakes with the
horses and cattle would take alonga
supply of cornmeal and a few SIM
pie cooking vessels, depending on
their guns to furnish the meat need
ed during the winter. The stock re-
CURED but little attention on 40
count of the richness of the range"
and the men spent most Of the time
hunting.
It was while spending q winter In
this way on Big Beaver near White
river, about ten miles northeast Of
the present town of Forsyth, that q
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 rug
ged wilderness, and his habitatiou
was hollow sycamore tree, giant
of the mountain forest. One Of the
young men who made the acquaint-
ance of that lonely inhabitant OF the
southwest Missouri frontier 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
entirely 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
eapacious hollow the hermit found
lodging was several miles from any
white settlement. It 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 adventures and some mat
tors of history, but said nothing re-
specting his own personal anteced-
ents. He was a man Of good edu-
cation for those times and had tho
manners of a gentleman who had
boon familiar with refined society.
Sloan lived for some time in the
hollow treo and finally moved out
into little pole house which he built
near the sycamore. Here he lived
for number Of years, hunting deer
and bear every day until fate ended
his strange career in mystery. One
day party of hunters passed by the
hermit's hut and stopped to have q
talk with the interesting stranger.
The men were Mortified to find the
dead body of Sloan, partly decom-
posed and burned, lying on the rude
hearthstone, where there had been q
fire. From all the indications it ap-
peared to the party of hunters who
made the CHASTITY discovery that the
hermit had fallen in q faint on the
fire and died q terrible death there
all alone in that Ozark wilderness
The man had evidently been dead
several days whom the body was
found. The remains were given a
very simple burial by the hunters,
and the secret of Sloan's life was
never revealed. Some persons
thought that a love disappo ointment
or q deeper domestic sorrow had
driven the man into voluntary exile,
while others half suspected that the
hermit was fugitive from justice
and sought concealment under AZ
alias in the wild solitudes of thu
White river bottoms. After thu
death of the stranger there nevel
came to the Ozarks q whisper of in
curry about the 1nau--St. Louil
Globe Democrat.
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