The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-11
.LONEL|EST MAN
 IN WORLD DIES Killed In Storm Near Jamaica
 Island DESERTED BY HIS WIFE Kept Pictures of His Children But Not of the Wife Who Deserted
 Him In Hour of His
 Adversity.
DESERTED BY HIS WIFE

From the New York World.
 Kingston, Jamaica.-The loneliest man in the world is dead. His melancholy ex- istence, deprived of wife, children. friends and of all companionship, with the exception of three half-savage Ba- hama negroes came to an end in the storm that wrecked the wretched col lection of tin-roofed huts known as Mat thewtown, on the Island of Inagua, re- gently.
 The hurricane that flooded the town and smashed the big tanks, in which the rainy season water was collected for the arid summer months on the desolate sand spit that Is Inagua, also obliterated the loneliest mans hemp plant, where for years he struggled alone to make a suc- cess of growing sisal. The struggle cost him his wife, his children, the remnant of his once large fortune, which he made as Florida planter, and finally, as has been said, his life.
 Frank c. Carter was the recluse, the news of whose death reached here by the British steamer Ajax which, storm-bat- tered. put into Inagua to lie to for re- pairs, only to find the miserable little collection of huts wiped out and Carter. whose melancholy personality and story were known to practically every skipper who ever sailed West Indian waters a memory only.
 Shadow of Former Self.
 Carter was a 1.-the 6-footer, but his once huge frame had been racked by the fever carried by the wind that blows across Inagua from the Savanans of the interior, till his white duck clothes hung on him like cerements and the pith hel- met he habitually wore was down to his ears. He had a long mustache, which was bleached by the wind and spume of the miserable rainy seasons till it re- sembled nothing more than a wisp of Spanish moss. He was a figure to smile at only till you knew his story.
 Carter's Florida property, an immense orange plantation, was exterminated in the famous frost of 1895. He found him. self practically penniless. His wife and two children, who had lived in luxury, as was befitting the family of a well-to- do planter, had to realize one day that the man they had looked to for every thing was a bankrupt.
 The once wealthy owner of small do- main had many friends nevertheless, and they organized a small company to grow hemp on Inagua- In course of time Car ter and his family sailed to look after the new industry. They found Inagua far worse than a desert island, for the blacks and half-breeds of Matthewtown did not welcome the intrusion, as they re- garded 1t, of Carter and his beautiful and somewhat naughty wife. The buildings of the hemp company were several miles from Matthewtown, and Carter and his wife were as isolated as Robinson Cruso, with the exception of three blacks, who worked the hemp.
 Went Wrong From the Start.
 From the very start things went wrong. There was not enough money put into the concern in the first place, and Carter had everything to learn about hemp culture. The loneliness maddened him and so af- fected his wife that he feared her brain would give way. Then the company gave up the ghost and Carter was left with the hemp plant on bis hands-a worth less gift.
 He managed to raise a small amount by mortgaging the plant through friends in Florida, and with this he sent his wife in a native schooner to Nassau. She took the children with her, and he was to join them there when the hemp factory could be disposed of in some way. Car ter's wife was young and vivacious, and in the gay society she met at Nassau she soon forgot the lonely exile toiling in the sandy stretches among the salt-crusted
  was weeks afterward-by one of the irreg- ular steamers that stopped at the island that his wife had decided that she was sacrificing her life and happiness by walt ing for him, and had eloped with young New York broker she had met at Nassau. She took the children with her.
 From that day on Carter never heard of her-never mentioned her name. That was in 1897. He grew gaunter and more melancholy looking, and that was the only sign he gave.
 Your correspondent was a passenger on a German boat that stopped at Inagua two years ago on her way to New York from Kingston, Jamaica, her skipper hav- ing been notified by the Matthewtown sig nal station that Carter had some hemp to ship. Twenty bales, the product of whole years work, was the meagre ship menl.
 The steamer ran round from Matthew town and in the afternoon dropped anchor in the little bay on which the hemp buildings and Carter's living shack were built AS there was shoal water in shore 1t was impossible to anchor nearer in than half mile, and the hemp had to be laboriously carried to the ship in boats. As this would be a whole afternoons work, the captain, the second officer and your correspondent decided to go ashore and look over the plant and possibly get some duck shooting.
 As the boat neared the shore Cartor's lank form emerged from the main build ing, in which are the presses that split the long. flat hemp leaves into fbre He shaded his eyes with his bony hand as she neared the landing place. The cap tain knew him and greeted him cordially The skipper was a big-hearted. bearded Viking of German and knew Carter's story. The deserted man led the way to his house after he had courteously ac- knoMledged the cantain,s introduction He