{"id":733,"date":"2011-02-26T01:35:47","date_gmt":"2011-02-26T01:35:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/piqueoftheweek.wordpress.com\/?p=733"},"modified":"2011-02-26T01:35:47","modified_gmt":"2011-02-26T01:35:47","slug":"lives-alone-the-story-of-kingstons-famous-hermit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kplma.org\/pique\/2011\/02\/26\/lives-alone-the-story-of-kingstons-famous-hermit\/","title":{"rendered":"Lives Alone – The Story of Kingston’s Famous Hermit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thinking of those who are under-represented in archival collections, of the undocumented figures of history, \u00a0hermits have to be in the top ten, right? \u00a0That just doesn’t seem right, so…<\/p>\n

\"Dan<\/a>
Dan Fuller the Hermit in front of his hut, 1893<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

here’s the story of Kingston’s famous hermit, drawn from a cabinet card, a few entries in town records, a newspaper article, a hand-written rebuttal and an anonymous letter.<\/p>\n

Vital records provide the bare bones of biography: Daniel Weston Fuller was born to Consider and Hannah (Eaton) Fuller on January 5, 1812 and died of pneumonia on June 7, 1894, the year after his story was published in the Boston Journal<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In 1893, a reporter* traveled south to investigate “the trapper of Smelt Pond.” The story that followed \u2013 published on March 17, 1893 then reprinted in the Kingston News<\/em> a few weeks later \u2013 romanticized the recluse with quaint, yet peculiar anecdotes. \u00a0He slept in a molasses barrel, renounced society over an unrequited love, and shot game with a muzzle-loader that had belonged to Daniel Webster, a friend of Dan’s brother Samuel. \u00a0Dan \u201ceducated\u201d an owl for a pet and shot his own dog when \u201c \u2018he got so dainty he wouldn\u2019t eat raw potato skins.\u00a0 Didn\u2019t have any use for a dog such as that\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

After moving out of the hogshead, Dan lived in a 12\u2019 x 6\u2019 hut, a former shoe-shop on Wapping Road later moved deep into the woods between Elm Street and Ring Road. He kept count of snowstorms with tick marks on one \u201cgreasy black\u201d wall, and the number of mice caught on another. He festooned his small room with garlands of duck egg shells. What money he earned came from bounties on crows and woodchucks, once netting $17 for 34 heads, or from ducks brought to town, \u201creally very nice if disassociated from the grimy hands that brought them.\u201d His sustenance came from the forest, though in his later years, he did accept food, wood and tobacco from friends. The reporter noted that the hermit\u2019s \u201cpiercing black eyes\u201d turned sociable when presented with a gift box of fruit and bread.<\/p>\n

The next piece of evidence appeared in response to the article: an unknown friend of Dan’s wrote to the editor that \u201cthere was no unrequited love in his case. He was a born son of the forest to begin with,\u201d sleeping on a bed of leaves at 5 years old. \u00a0His family was\u00a0\u201cold fashioned even for them days 1820.\u201d \u00a0Consider Fuller allowed his children to roam the woods, counting them every Sunday and \u201cif they was all there or was not missing two Sunday mornings in succession, he was satisfied.\u201d \u00a0Daniel’s defender noted that he made his living from the wilderness, selling furs and skins, wild honey and feathers for pillows, and stated that\u00a0\u201cDaniel cannot care for tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

The last document is a semi-anonymous letter dated\u00a0February 6, 1935, from\u00a0Katie in Canton to her Aunt Addie recounting Roger\u2019s memories of Dan the Hermit, including the well-told tale that he never washed. \u00a0There is not much more detail, but the letter does show that the hermit’s story was still in living memory more that 30 years after his death. \u00a0As late as 2003, the foundation on which Dan’s \u201crude hut\u201d sat could still be seen, deep in the woods of Kingston.\u00a0 Those stones, along with a yellowed clipping, a two page recollection and a single letter are all that remain to tell the tale.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*Emily Fuller Drew, who transcribed the article in 1938, believed it was written by Elroy Sherman Thompson, newsman, editor and publisher of the Kingston News.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sources: Vertical File: Dan Fuller; Town Clerk’s Reports; Vital Records of Kingston to 1850.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thinking of those who are under-represented in archival collections, of the undocumented figures of history, \u00a0hermits have to be in the top ten, right? \u00a0That just doesn’t seem right, so… here’s the story of Kingston’s famous hermit, drawn from a cabinet card, a few entries in town records, a newspaper article, a hand-written rebuttal and … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Lives Alone – The Story of Kingston’s Famous Hermit”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,15],"tags":[125,135],"class_list":["post-733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-people","tag-hermits","tag-huts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kplma.org\/pique\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kplma.org\/pique\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kplma.org\/pique\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kplma.org\/pique\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kplma.org\/pique\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kplma.org\/pique\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kplma.org\/pique\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kplma.org\/pique\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kplma.org\/pique\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}