Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1904-02-10
wALHALLA. soOYa oAKoLINA. rEp. no, 1904.
The Lonliest Man sn~.,. .. D,.. -. Island 49,, ,.s,
I'm California. - 1ss, 1.,,, ,.,,. ,,' More than

S%ssssSSs w w
INN the dreariest island in the
NJ Californian archipelago, Abel
Summers has made his home for
more than thirty years, knowing al
most as little of the rest of the world
as though he lived on another planet.
Alone with few dogs and bunch
of sheep, this strangely isolated man
of education and good breeding has
found contentment on barren, wind
sweep, uncanny San Clemente Island,
sixty seven miles off the coast of Los
Angeles county, and in the bosom of
the Pacific Ocean. Solitary, yet not
80 because of any morbid dislike for
human companionship; contented
because he is shut off from the cares
that vex men. For companionship
he has thoughts, and the memory of
a woman's fair face; and the ghosts,
maybe, of the prehistoric dead whose
bones bleach on the hillsides of the
desert isle.
Cut off from the mainland, SO far
away that it is merely perceptible as
purple haze on sunny days, he
knows nothing of what makes life
| for such as US. The white sails of
craft, passing up and down
the coast, are the only signs
of human activity that he
sees from one season to another.
Once year, wool and sheep buyers
visit San Clemente. Then he barters
his feeoy orop for an annual supply
of provisions and clothes. AT inter-
walls of years some am mateur exploring
expedition lands for adventure and
investigation, and when the visitors
embark, and the sails of their vessel
melt into the vast expanse of sea and
sky, Abel Summers and his dogs go
back up the grim cliffs and settle
down to more years of solitude.
None under the Stars and Stripes
can say so truly as he:
1 am monarch of all l survey;
My right there is none to dispute,
From the center all around to the sea,
Lam Lord of the fowl and brute.
San Clemente is the no-man's
land of the Pacific shore archipelago.
1t is of volcanic origin; a peak of an
island of ragged cliffs, stretches of
white sand, rocky promontories, grim,
whitened canyons and alkali-laden
gulches. One will have to seek long
and far to find more desolate, for
bidding spot. No vegetation grows
there, save in few little valleys
back from the ocean and among the
CHASTITY hills, where little sedge
grass sprouts when it rains. AS far
as the eye of the visitor, standing on
the inhospitable shores can see, there
is nothing but shifting sands, pale
cliffs, titantic powders and forsaken,
withered canyons that seam the
blasted hills. The ocean thunders
against the bleached rocks. 1t is @
scene of intensest melancholy.
In forgotten ages San Clemente
was occupied by hardy race. Stone
mortars, metates, pestles and crude
stone and bone household imple-
ments strew the shore. Here and
thare the bones of an aborogine lie
among the sands. In several spots
the winds have gnawed away mounds
of sand that once covered the ancient
dead, leaving grinning skulls and
crumbling skeletons to add to the
scene of desolation and intensity the
sepulchral air that pervades the
place. These aborigines were fisher
men. The great heaps of mollusk
shells about the sole spring of pal
atable water on the island, that which
runs out Of the volcanic rocks, indicate
that. The quantities of stone fishing
implements, found in ancient graves,
are further evidence. Whence the
race came, how long it lived here,
how and whence it departed are
some of the mysteries that envelop
gloomy San Clemente.
The sailors and fishermen abou,