Evening star., 1909-08-30
HERMIT CLOWN DEAD
Old Bill Shafer Began Career
With Dan Rice.
HE SOLD LIGHTNING RODS
Finally Built Shack in Woods and
Made Echoes Ring.
FOND OF LITTLE CHILDREN
Amused Imaginary Audience With
Fiddle and Ventriloquism and
Made Mock Applause.
IE SOLD LIGHTNING RODS
FOND OF LITTLE CHILDREN

iadlC dAu SSdll
Made Mock Applause.
NEWTON. N j., August Self all the
clowns of ali the CrcuSes shou'd gun
their Joking and doff their pointed caps
for minute or two today II would he
a fitting tribute to forgotten old William
Shafer, who made the world laugh haii
a century ago, and who lies dead in his
hernts hut, where, for the last twenty
years. he had played his violin to the
birds and squirrels and depended on his
powers as a ventriloquist for shouts OF
approval from the tree tops.
For, although he had lived to bc an
octogenarian and three years more, his
proldest boast was that ne had been the
first clown ever employed by Dan Rice $
circus, way back before the war and
the days of Barnum. and that ne nad ;.a
Travelled with the show all over the
United States. and Europe.
Family Disapproved of Him.
The funeral was held today. The pro-
cession that made rs way from the
shack in the woods TO the village
cemetery was not an imposing one, for
even Newton had almost forgotten the
existence of Bill, and his few surviving
relatives never approved of his views
of life.
All of the rest of the family, which
was big one. were of the sterner sort,
born and bred up here in the noun
tainS of Sussex county. and growing ola
with the notion that fiddlins was no tit
occupation for farmers son. and with
the firm conviction that being show
man was lasting shame. On the other
hand. Bill couldn't get their point Of
view.
That is why he decided to become
hermit twenty years ago, when his wife
died, and he was too old to knock around
the world any more. So he built himself
dog kennel in the woods beyond the
town. and In 1t he has slept and cooked
and tiddled ever since
He died Saturday of old age. Word
was sent to one of his three living sisters
and she came up from Newark to see to
the burial. When asked about her broth
ers life this prim and wellmeaning old
lady said severely:
William Shafer was born efGhty-three
years ago in Sussex county, son OF the
late Peter and Nancy Shafer. He died in
Sussex county. Nothing more can be
said
The birth and the death We're the only
two events in the career of this jolly Old
man which the sister thought fit to men
ton. Not word about those long inter-
yening eightythree years, no recognition
of the fact that he used to tumble about
the ring till his bones ached, to make folk
happy.
Friend of Children.
And yet nobody ever heard Of Bill
Shafer's doing an unkind thing to any
| body or of his ever refusing to play his
fiddle or make queer voices come out OF
the trees for any group Of children that
stopped at his hut.
| When asked IL her brother had not been
| clown the sister denied 1t and said that
| such a report was a disgrace to the fam
| lily. But Bill was SO much older than she
| that he might have finished his Glowing
and got into the lightning rod business be-
! fore she was born.
He took up the rods after he left the
ring. He was always a joker. And after
that he travelled around the country talk
ing tin-types.
It was his misfortune to be always
. amusing himself and others. but never TO
do anything except to die there that stern
Sussex county could thoroughly approve
or recognize as real work.
An exception, however, should be made
in favor of the children. Since Bill be-
came hermit every expedition TO the
woods for nuts or birds eggs or wild flow
ers has taken in the hut on the way home.
Played to Imaginary Audience.
Sometimes the best show was when the
youngsters approached quietly and hid be-
hind trees to listen so that the old man
did not know that he had any audience
other than the ever-present imaginary one
to any part of which he could throw tina I
wonderful voice of his to come back to
him in applause of his own performance.
That wasn't mere vanity. Bill had been
used to lots of applause when he was IN
the real sawdust ring, SO it was only a
necessary part of the make-believe per-
formance with which he whiled away the
hours and the years of his solitude.
Fiddle and wandering by
over the world together.
He was almost always sure to sing
that to the music of his violin In the
course of his lone performance, and then
out of the woods somewhere would come
the voice of the ventriloquist. crying
! Good and "Encore." whereupon the
singer would always ohige.
Then, TO amuse himself, he would re-
peat some of the did arguments he used
to bring to bear on the farmers of SuS-
sex county TO convince them that If they
didn't buy his ! ghtnine rods their barns
would be destroyed In the next great
tempest. and then change his voice to
take the doubling farmers side of the
question.
Bill always did succeed In selling the
rods when he in that line. Per-
froWned on the hermit and why he Liked
to give limitations to himself In the
woods.
Filled Woods With Voices.
When the children finally came out of
hiding and declared that they had heard
] Lit