6 NORTH SHORE BREEZE and Reminder 
Sept. 22, 1916. 
The Hermit of Gloucester 
HELENE P. SHERMAN i : 
HREE times have I visited the hermit of Gloucester 
at his little cabin on Bond’s Hill and three times have 
I been charmed with his keenness of wit and expression. 
Mason A. Walton is, indeed, one of the most interesting 
figures in the whole history of the North Shore and his 
whole thirty-one years here have been filled with. the 
healthful joy of a satisfying life, for the hermit is, ac- 
cording to his own statement, perfectly contented with 
his lot in life. What more than that can any man ask? 
Mr. Walton is about seventy-eight years old, active 
and strong. He has a keen, interesting face and can talk 
on any subject his visitors may bring up from the most 
intimate habits of his tiniest bird friends to the proper 
treatment of a key log in the biggest and worst jam that 
has ever been seen on the old Penobscot River in Maine. 
His forehead and large head are indicative of the man’s 
innate intellectuality, and his curly white hair and mus- 
tache remind one (no write-up of the hermit would be 
complete without mention of this fact, 1 am sure) of 
Mark Twain. His eyes are deep-set, and appear the 
more so because of his high, prominent cheekbones, and 
his chin and jaw are small and clean-cut. He usually 
wears a black suit and a low white collar with a black 
tie. My visits to him have am a period of ten years 
and in that time he has changed but little. His black suit 
appears to be identical with the one in which I first saw 
him, and his shrewd, kindly smile is the same. 
We wonder if he is not smiling at the eccentricities 
of city folk who persist in visiting a man who has moved 
‘nto the woods to be alone. That fact apparently makes 
little difference to them, for he has more than a few 
visitors of all descriptions and from all parts of the world. 
Rich man, poor man, beggar man,—we shall forbear to 
finish the list, but they are there and many another be- 
sides. Four thousand strong they come every year to 
visit the hermit in his cabin. Mr. Walton displays none 
of the taciturnity that one has been led to expect from a’ 
bonafide hermit, and cheerfully takes the time from his 
writing to talk to his guests and entertain them with the 
story of his life. 
He was born in Maine on July 31, 1838, the son of 
Samuel and Sarah (Brown) Walton. His home was at 
Oldtown, just outside of Bangor, and a place of especial 
interest because on the island there is one of the last of 
the Eastern reservations for the Indians. When the her- 
mit was only seven years old, he says, his father allowed 
him to go into the woods with an old Indian guide, who 
tatight the boy his first lessons in animal lore. It was on 
this early trip that he first learned that birds and animals 
have their languages. 
The hermit graduated from the Hampden Academy 
at the age of twenty-one and for many years thereafter 
led a pleasant and varied life, doing some farming, less 
teaching and a bit of lumbering. To me the exciting days 
“on the drive” form one of the most interesting periods 
in Mr. Walton’s life. He gives, in his quaint, dry way, 
enlightening descriptions of those experiences with the 
lumber jacks who (he assures us) ate their tobacco. The 
hermit, by the way, does not use tobacco or liquors in any 
form, and this may partly account for his hardiness today. 
He comes, however from a race that is apparently long- 
lived, for he speaks frequently of his brother, who at 85 
years of age is still a practicing surgeon in Bangor. 
At the age of 42, Mr. Walton married Olive Brad- 
ford of Alton, Maine. His married happiness was not 
‘first built there, of course. 
long to endure, however, for his wife died seven years 
after the marriage. After her death, the hermit engaged 
in politics to some extent, lecturing in his nativé state for 
the Greenback party. This was in 1877 and for the next 
year or two he continued his political career. He lectured 
in Massachusetts for Benjamin Butler and in New Hamp- 
shire for the Greenbacks again. At about this time, also, 
he became the editor of a campaign paper, The Greenback 
Record, and the next year of The Bangor Record, another 
six-months paper. ; 
By 1884, the hermit was a sick man. He had a 
cough, dyspepsia and catarrh. His physician told him 
that if he did not get out of the city at once, he would 
not live two months. 
“Go into the deep woods,” he said, “get away from 
the dusty cities and the open country that is full of flow- 
ers. Keep far away from the wild astor and golden rod 
and all such flowers that have much pollen to irritate 
your catarrh.” 
So it came about that the hermit came to Gloucester 
and pitched his tent on Band’s Hill—in the middle of 
about ten acres of golden rod, incidentally! He is still 
very much alive, well and happy. He built himself a little 
cabin, in which he lived for 19 years. Twelve years ago 
he built another cabin on a different site, and he still 
refers to this as the “new cabin” and will do so, probably, 
until the end of the chapter. It is about two miles out- 
side the town of Gloucester in the district now known as 
Ravenwood Park, now much more settled than when he 
t b The best way to reach the 
cabin is to take an auto bus out of Gloucester, or, if you 
happen to be coming from the other direction, out of 
Manchester or Magnolia. -Get out at the top of the hill 
by Stage Fort Park and take the road leading into the - 
woods. It is easily found because a large teahouse stands 
on the left side. This is the old Salem road, once the 
only route between Gloucester and Salem, and by follow-. 
ing it about a mile you will reach the cabin. 
A tiny place, the hermitage. It is on the right of the 
road amid a group of pine trees, a reminder perhaps of 
the trees of Maine, and is only about 14 feet by 22 feet. 
It is simply, but warmly built, and the hermit, himself, 
cut the trees and made the cabin. When one steps through 
the doorway, he finds himself in a room that serves for 
everything except sleeping purposes. | The place is not 
very orderly, but is clean. Long windows, close under 
the eaves of the house, furnish the only light. At the 
left as one enters are shelves containing the hermit’s most 
prized possessions, his books, and nearby is the old-fash- 
ioned “cook-stove.” The hermit’s favorite seat is by his 
book-shelves in a large Morris chair that seems to take up 
most of the space in the room. His writing table, which 
is in front of him, separates him from the common herd 
of callers that troop every day to the.cabin. The corner 
behind the range is boarded off for a sleeping apartment 
and against the front partition of this is placed a settee 
for visitors and along the right wall of the room, another 
one. In this little cabin on the top of.a hill that with its 
sea breezes and its pine trees has proved to be a health 
giver, the hermit leads his simple life. When he isn’t 
entertaining callers, he writes. Some of the fruits of his 
labors have found they way to print in magazines that 
deal with out door life and his book, “A Hermit’s Wild 
Friends,” has been in the market for some years now. 
I wondered if the mosquitoes that were so thick and 
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