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Michael Way (0:04)
Another shooting star, the 10th one tonight. Sitting here under the stars makes me remember when I was just a young kid. You know, those days they say, are the easiest days in your life. And at night you look up at the stars in this huge old sky and wonder who's looking back at you. I used to do that a lot when I was a kid, look up at the stars. But I could still hear my folks yelling at each other in the cabin. It wasn't anything my father doesn't mind you. It was just that he and my stepmother just couldn't seem to see eye to eye. My stepmother she was the Terrot in my family. It wasn't any better when I moved in at Uncle Clyde's worse sometimes the way they tease me and whip me for nothing at all. I was just a kid, you know? How was I supposed to know what was expected of me with my mom and daddy not being able to figure out what they was all about. But I was beginning to get the hang of living with these tyrants. I just wouldn't be around much. I'd make myself scarce, stay alone a lot. But sometimes I'd sit down on a moss by the creek and listen to the birds sing in the woods nearby. I still hear the voices in my head, telling me how bad I was. I come out onto the branches at these old pine trees at night sometimes and look up at the stars. Listen to the waves fall on the beach and the crickets chirp and the frogs peep, bend pine needles between my fingers and wonder what I'm going to have to do to make a difference in this world. Once my book is out, though, the world will know all about the tyrants. Back in the summer of 1913, 1914 I applied at Mr. [Brownlee's] cotton mill for work after I'd moved in with Uncle Clyde. Old man [Brownlee] just looked down at me and gave me one of those. I'm better than you smirks that I could have gotten at home and stuck a broom in my hand and told me I was hired. I was really happy to get a job so I could have spending money of my own new pencils for high school at Boiling Springs in the fall would be nice and maybe a new pair of pants that didn't have a piece of cloth and the rag box sewn into them. I worked for Mr. [Brownlee] for going on two weeks before I quit. From sunup to seven, maybe eight o'clock at night, damn, I was tired. I just sit there on those old wooden steps by the front door at night to beat to move after the supervisor would close up and blowed into my nose. I could have made a shirt with all the fluffy stuff that flew out. And later I worked off and on in the fields. And then in the late 20s or early 30s. I got a job on the WPA projects as a waterboy. The workers there were a bunch of tyrants they picked on me all the time. Many times I had to fight to defend myself. Finally I decided I'd had it that I had never slaved away for anyone else again. Slavery was supposed to be against the law. When I turned 18 I married the prettiest girl in town, the prettiest in one of the smartest girls I've ever known. Katie was a name. She wrote beautiful poetry and could sing like a mockingbird at sunrise. Oh, how I love that girl. We sat next to each other in English class. I passed her a handwritten note one day when Ms. Campbell wasn't looking. Katie unfolded note, read it and put it in a book without even looking over at me. I was dying inside to know what she thought my I asked her out. When the bell rang on the way out the door. She stopped me and looked down into my eyes and one of the brightest smiles said yes. It was probably the happiest day of my entire life. Now I'm quite sure of it. Well, we caught it for quite a while. And then one night when we were sitting on a parent's big front porch on one of those wooden swings that was chained to the ceiling. I asked her to marry me. I was shocked when she said yes to that too, real shocked. We had five beautiful children we did in the years we were together. We had one we had some misfortune with our little girl Nellie Kate though.

(4:52)
We lost her in winter '29. She wasn't about a month old, wasn't too well at all when she was born. Small like me. I tried to provide a warm comfortable home for her. Really I did. It's just during the Depression, we had to go without a lot of things more than usual that is sometimes a cabin would get real cold night even with a log in the fireplace. Nelly look just like her mama. Katie took it real hard. So did I. Life's funny like that people say, bring so much joy then takes it away from you before you know what's happening. Some people say things are just meant to be some folks who get help at a time like that from reading the Bible. But I tend to trust myself for guidance. Maybe that's why I've messed up so much. I have never been able to understand that till now. Many years ago, Katie and I loaded up the kids and drove down here to Carolina Beach. We had an old Model T back then that I made into a bus took me months to build that thing. But I've always been good with my hands and had enough room to sleep the family Alvin, Bolg, Edward, Luther and Kate to myself. I think it was the first of what they call today a Winnebago. We traveled all around in it. When I ran out of money, we just pull over in some town and I'd set up a stand on the street and sell jewelry, bracelets, sometimes even dog collars to make a few dollars. I am happiest when I'm on my own. I can manage just like the best of them. I've got lots of ideas on how to make money. And if they don't work, I'll think of something else. On the way to the beach that summer, somewhere near Lake Waccamaw as the sun was setting a possum ran across the road. Heck, he just scooted out right in front of us. He turned looked me square in the eyes just before the left front wheel rolled over him. I pulled off the road and we're gonna have to see if he was hurt bad. Edward ran up to him and kicked him. He's dead, he said, grabbed him by the tail and pulled him off the road onto the sand. By the time I got to him it stopped flinching. So I picked him up and carried him to the back of the bus and shoved him into a burlap sack. The boys kept looking back behind the seat every so often to be sure we hadn't come back to life. Katie was handling it real well until I grabbed her leg when she was looking. She screamed so loud. I was nearly deaf in my right ear, nearly wrecked the bus. The kids loved it, grabbed each other off and on till we got to Wilmington. We got about halfway from town to the beach and Katie was getting pretty ragged with me not fixing something for the kids to eat. I found a road off the highway down below where they kept the monkeys at the gas station and pulled down into a clump of trees. I sent the kids to find some wood and pretty soon we had a blaze and campfires the moon rose high in the sky. The wood crackled away send and spotless to the branches hanging down from an old oak tree above. A possum smelled mighty good spinning there an oak limb above the coals. After dinner, I talked about what was wrong with the country what people should do to fix it. The row head said we should stand up against injustice if that's what we had to do. And I was pretty good at speaking my mind by now. The tyrant in me was well developed. After an hour or two of my blaming the politicians for all our troubles, we curled up in the bus pulled old wool army blankets up to our necks. Even though it was summertime there was a chill in the air when the sun went down and the blankets helped to keep the bugs off. I said good night to everybody. And we closed our eyes and drifted off as the remains the campfire spotted into the night. Those vacations were a real blessing. A time to get out of the hills of Shelby and come back to the ocean. The sound of the water always seemed to ease my mind and renew my spirits. It provided me with a time to reflect and for the family, time together old fresh seafood for free with it never bored by any. By the time the sun was poking through the trees. I had the fire popping again in a pot of coffee perking. The squirrels have been in the limbs they jump from tree to tree. Katie yelled something at me from the window of the bus and I yell back at her there was time to wake the boys up and get moving. I held a cup of my lips and blew the steam off. After passing through Kure Beach the road manded down to the old Civil War fort. It was the most beautiful place I'd ever seen next to Chimney Rock. History was bountiful here. I was amazed that more folks didn't come here and enjoy it. It was special to me because it was a final stronghold of the Confederacy. It somehow reassured me to know that 1000s of folks just like me, had struggled for independence, and probably always would. At the fort, we're reminded of the Great War all around. The first day we were there, Luther cut his foot on a jagged piece of rusted metal sticking out of the sand. We dug it out of the ground with our hands. It was a big old piece of a cannonball. When the tide was out, the coquina rocks were exposed and parts of a deck of a huge ship, probably a blockade runner. We're sticking right out of the water. Kate and I caught a massive fish there when the tides were right. When the water started going out again, we jam pieces of wood under the rocks and big storm crabs had grabbed ahold of them. We pulled them out and put them in a sack along with the fish. Later, we had him for supper. I was becoming real concerned about Edwin. He was acting like me at times getting mad at the littlest things, not paying attention to what he was getting into. That evening, when I came back to the bus after several hours of exploring the area for future reference. Katie was holding him and he was yelling something awful. He was blistered all up, welts were rising all over his shoulders and back. We took him in to see the doctor at Carolina Beach. After looking at him from head to toe on that table for a half hour. He rubbed vinegar all over, gave him some pills. Charged me $10 for 10 cents worth of vinegar. We would've used some of ours if I had known how much he was going to add to it. The doctor said that he'd never seen a boy his age get burned up so bad. Why hadn't I been keeping an eye on him? That burned me up and I told him a thing or two. Who do you think he was accusing me of neglecting my boy? I might be a tyrant at home at times. But I love my boys with all my heart. I just didn't show it much. That's all. Edward and I slept on the beach that night on blankets. He was so hot. The bus got hot just having him in there. I looked down at him quivering on a blanket. And I wanted to tell him things. I wanted to talk to him like I guess a father is supposed to talk to his son. I just couldn't think of what to say. No one had ever given me advice when I was growing up. They only yelled at me. That's the way it was most of the time. I never had much to say to any of my boys at a time like that. I knew they would learn things on their own though, just like me. It makes you stronger when you can figure things out for yourself. That was almost 30 years ago. Edward sure turned out a lot like me. Alvin met a nice girl and got married. In 35, or so they were expecting a child and Alvin couldn't find decent work for a long time got real depressed. And as usual, I couldn't think of the right things to say to him. One night, he got real quiet, got all dressed up in his new suit walked out of the cabin just before dinner.

(13:30)
He threw himself off a railroad trestle at night later died in Kate's arm at the hospital. The whole family was torn up about Alvin. Katie and I were having some real serious problems. I ended up spending some time on the east wing of the hospital on account of Kate's family saying there was something real wrong with me.

(13:52)
They never took the time to understand me. That's all. It's getting hard for an honest man like me to get ahead in this world. 500 million people in this world and half of them suckers. I guess I'm a sucker. That's why I'm so poor. After I escaped from the hospital that summer. I knew it was my last chance to catch up with the rest of the world. I decided I couldn't get a fresh start where I was. No I have to get far away. My stomach was aching because I hadn't eaten for days, too tied up in knots. Before folks at the hospital have probably stopped looking for me by now and besides my family, I pretty much given up on. I had met Dr. William Marcus Taylor, a famous psychologist in Spruce Pine the day after I had freed myself. He set me straight on a lot of things for the first time in my life. If I hadn't went across his booklet at the hospital, tell him about his lecture on biopsychology that weekend, I probably stayed confused my entire life. That Dr. Taylor what an inspiration. I finally found someone who understood what I had been saying all those years. And to have someone for once in my life agree with me, oh would have was something he allowed me to sign up in his bio psychology course that day. That was the beginning of my big turnaround anda chance to finally get my diploma. I hadn't thought much about education, since I decided to drop out of school after studying for the ministry at Gardner Webb. My professor had an attitude that I detest in religious folks. They think their beliefs are the only ones in the world, and that no one else knows anything about God, life or death. It's almost against the law for an individual to think for himself anymore. Around the summer of 55, I knew it was time to make a new life for myself. And I decided to hit the highway. A big black car slowed down and pulled off the road sending up clouds of dirt. Harrill's the name I told the kid behind the wheel of the Chevrolet as I threw my bag at my feet and close the door. All I've got is a nickel and a bad name. I wouldn't have that if someone hadn't given it to me. Go into Fort Fisher. I said, you know, that's where the Confederates fought the last battle for independence. I'm gonna find a home, write a book about tyrants. Yep, I'm a writer, wrote for a paper and worked as a liner typist for over 20 years. You know, all those crooked politicians up in Washington work for the millionaire's. So do those folks up in Raleigh. The common man like you and me, don't stand a chance. If we play by the rules those politicians make these days. I'm 62 years old and I can tell you I've met them all rich man, poor man, the crooked politician, the freeloaders the hoodlums know what I'm saying, young man, I found out the meaning of life. Have you ever thought about that? The key is to have faith in yourself, faith in others, faith in your present and in your future. Do you have any bad patterns in your life young man, you know, you can change those bad patterns, fear patterns, I call them. Those old patterns can be annihilated and new ones be born and they can grow and you can reap the harvest in rich living of the soul. Well, that was a little over 17 years ago. Most people don't call me by my real name anymore. Most normally as the Fort Fisher Hermit, some call me pops, Robert, Hermie makes no difference to me what they call me. So as long as, they called me to dinner. Quite a lot has happened to the country in these last few years. Assassinations, wars, hundreds of 1000s of new mouths to feed. I really feel for the poor people in this country, and the welfare people, they'll keep you in perfect misery. You've got to learn how to take care of yourself, like I've done here at Fort Fisher. Sometimes you have to just walk away from all the negatives in your life and start over. You know, I originally came here in 1955 for a vacation. But getting back to the ocean has renewed my spirits. Given me strength helped me change my goals in life. I've got to help people think for themselves, use common sense and express their individuality rather than suppress all of those like you're supposed to do when you're part of society. I've learned a lot about society since I left it. I've had a chance to study the people who come visit me here in the jungles and you know, they think they're studying me. I've been beaten, robbed, thrown in jail, even kidnapped. These used to be the Badlands when I got here in 55. A lot of sick people used to come here and tear up the place, drank whiskey straight out of the bottle they did you tell me if that's not a sign of a sick personality. Some of the people used to come in here late at night and use my place for lovemaking. One night about midnight a couple of months ago. A man I know brought an overweight woman out here and ran me out of my bunker laid her right down on my cot. Squashed it flat on the flounder. That's the reason I keep the place in the mess I do to discourage people using it in that way. And of course I'm a collector. Always have been people throw such good things away. I can always use the things people throw away for something. Jars, bottles, pieces of scrap wood. Take this pool table we're sitting at. The telephone company were throwing it out way. Some folks call my place a junkyard. What Henry Thoreau used to say. However mean your life is meet it and live it. Do not shun it and call it bad names. Life looks poorest when you are richest. The fault finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life poor as it is. Don't use the roads much at night anymore. It's too dangerous. Usually I walk through the woods when I go to town, so quiet and peaceful. And it gives me a lot of time to think. Long after I came here, as I was walking up to Carolina Beach to buy me a hat, two men offered to take me to town in their automobile. And to drive me around for 15 minutes these bullies turned on me and demanded $20. I didn't have $20 and I thought they were going to kill me. One of them started trying to do this karate type stuff on me swinging his arms and trying to kick me, but there wasn't enough room in the back seat. I would have laughed. If I hadn't been scared half to death. The driver pulled a gun on me. And I threw a handful of dollar bills at him and jumped out of the car. I ran through the bushes and use the phone of the Air Force Base and call the police. I don't like to call them unless I have to. Well, those two bullies got the car stuck in the sand and before they could get out. The police came and took them away. They're doing time now helping the state keep up the roads. A lot of old friends that helped me through the bad times have passed on. MP, my first real friend died a couple of years ago. He helped me find my home here. It's a bunker after the storms and the thieves ran me off my first home near the radar tower above the old Civil War fort. My, my, MP and I had some good time sitting here by the fire with the dogs after all my visitors had gone. We'd sit back on these old broken down chairs watch the moon rise out of the ocean. Listen to the katydids chirping in the brush. We talked about how things were changing so fast in the outside world, where ours was always so nice and peaceful. Sometimes we'd make up jokes about it. We'd feel safe and secure in our own world till someone from outside come in and try to destroy it. And MP used to stay out of sight until the outsiders were all gone. Over the years a son had done bad things to his face, and most folks thought he was scary to look at. He always wore a handkerchief tied around here. Never bothered me though I'm not much look at either. But some folks say I look a lot like the old man in the sea himself. Ernest Hemingway. Couple of years ago, man from Life magazine came to see me. Can you imagine that me uncover Life magazine? Well, they didn't want to read what I had to say about the crooked politicians and all. So they forgot all about the Fort Fisher Hermit. I figured being on the front page of magazine wasn't all that important. If you can't express your true feelings to the American public. I can do that just fine where I am. Old Captain MP I used to call in. I do miss him on nights like this. We made a great pair. We talked a lot about how we were freer than most everyone else in the world. We compared our lives to the tides of this great old sea out here just rolling in and out as we pleased. Only nature determined our existence. I love that man. Eventually I taught him to love to ask some of the patients at the hospital way back in the 30s. They felt no one cared about him. They continue to stay sick until someone started taking care of him and loved him. I cared about a lot. And we all got better together.

(23:52)
I'm real proud of the jungles of Fort Fisher these days, invited Mr. Khrushchev to come see me when he was visiting the president back in the 60s. I told him to spend some time here in the jungles to learn more about the American people really get to know them as I have in my years here in the jungles. Made good sense, I reckon. He sent a bunch of Russians from the Embassy in Washington to visit never got to introduce myself though. The limousine got stuck in the sand down the road and before I got to them, the sheriff had hauled them off. I wrote the governor several years ago, I told him how the tourists were flocking down to sandy road here near the rocks to see the hermit. I never came here to be a hermit I said, but I figured if that's what this place needed. I do scientific research on hermits and I become one. My boy Edward found me here back in 1957 a trucker feller took him a newspaper article about when Hurricane Helene blew through here and tore up the North Carolina coast real bad. Down wind blew my tendon to the next county I reckon, never found it after the storm blew by any way he took this article to Edward up in Ohio about his old man, Robert Harrell, who was living in a world war two ammunition bunker down, but the old Civil War fort, he realized it was me that we're talking about. And darned if Edward didn't pick up his old car and drive two days down here and find me. It was real dark that night. That wind was blowing just enough to keep the mosquitoes off, and a car pulled on my sand road and stopped over there. Somebody got out and stood by the front of the car. The headlights were blinding me. I couldn't tell who it was. I could see this man moving around. But I couldn't tell what he was doing. All of a sudden, he started to sing an old song I used to say myself years ago, silver haired daddy. I knew I knew I'd heard that voice before but I couldn't quite place it.

(24:22)
I got real quiet. I could see the man walking towards me, kind of scared me. I guess I must have backed off a bit. And then he said, Dad, it's me Edward. I want to tell you how I nearly broke down seeing Edward standing there. Of course I got my strength back real quick. Didn't want my family to know all about my problems with the hoodlums and crooked law enforcement officers. Edward had been working in the coal mines and he had a bad temper like me. I knew he might do something foolish. I would let out about all the bad things going on. We gave each other a hug when he didn't used to do that when he was growing up. Talk for quite a spell at night. The sun was just coming up over the dune rich when we decided to turn in. Edward slept in the car and I moved inside the bunker for a couple of hours till the sun heated it up and I had to crawl up under a tree. That afternoon after we ate some clams and oysters we caught together in the marsh he headed back. Edward pulled out some money from his pants pocket and offered it to me. He was crying like a baby when he told me how bad he felt was me living here like an animal. Well, let me tell you I made it perfectly clear to him. Well, I was the happiest man in the world here living with nature that didn't need any money. showed him a handful my own donations people left in my frying pan. I told him that for the first time in my life. I've been successful. He could see I was telling him the truth. He never felt sorry for me after that. Edward sent me a letter after he got back to Ohio. He addressed it to Robert E. Harrell, the Fort Fisher Hermit. Pretty soon everybody started coming out here to see the hermit. It took me a few days to figure out they were coming out here to see me made me real proud. Well, anyway, as I was saying, the governor sent me a letter I've probably still got it around here someplace in the one of those piles of personal belongings over there in the bunker said he didn't see the necessity for paving my road, even if it would help my tourist traffic. He said that he appreciated all the work I was doing here that he had heard some of the boys talking about me that he hoped to come down one day and maybe I'd take him fishing. He must have heard what a good fishing guide I am guarantee anyone a mesophase just give me a day or so to catch the tides right. I see you admire that scar here above my eyebrow. Well got that late one night when a man hit me with a pipe. Oh, I don't know why he did it. Some people just like come out here and harass me. Sometimes I guess they're jealous. I'm successful. They're not I'd be the happiest person in the world out here. If it weren't for the hoodlums thieves and some of these law enforcement people who come out just harass me. They started bothering me the first week I came here seeing they don't want an honest man around here. The trouble started when I ran into that real estate lady on the beach. One of my cats Smiley had found a baby blue jay was thinking seriously about having it for dinner. I ran over to the little feller and scooped him up with both hands. First time Smiley ever got mad about anything. Well, I put the baby bird in my shirt pocket when searching for some food for it. I knew it had died before morning if I didn't get him something to eat fast. You know he just not anything but a wiggle. Well, I was walking down by the dunes look for bugs and grasshoppers and such. And this woman came up and asked what I was doing. Well, I asked her straight up if she had anything that would wiggle. Well later that afternoon the police come down to haul me off to jail. They scare the daylights out of me. Half of them are crooked as those politicians up the Capitol. They don't care nothing for the common man. I got to know what a tour of mobile Carolina Beach and they treat me real nice. Just about as nice as those airmen at the Air Force Base up the road who bring me supplies and throw donations in my frying pan. Those sheriff's deputies from Wilmington still have my suitcase they took for me when I first got here, when they locked me up for vagrancy. Me a vagrant. I do anything I can around here to make a decent living digging clams and oysters. Taking people fishing acting as a tour guide. I do carry around a $10 government check now though, just in case gave up I get my bag back years ago. I figured one of them needed my stuff more than I did. They grabbed me so quick that night, that it didn't have time hardly to pack. I had a jar of apple juice covered in plastic wrap that leaked all out and ruined my only two good shirts. It was mainly the letters that I wanted from Katie and my boys. I used to sit here and read them over and over. I'd have to do that sometimes just to figure out what I wanted to say them. Heck, sometimes it'd take me six months to answer one of their letters. By the time I get halfway through though, everything would have changed here. I just have to start over I thought Kate and I might get back together one day. But since coming here, I've decided to do what I've got to do. All alone. The jungles aren't any place to raise a family. Besides you better able to figure things out sometimes when you're alone by yourself. Last year, I finally started to write my book, a tyrant in every home I'm going to call it about my family and growing up with those tyrants. Dr. Taylor understood exactly what I meant by the tyrants. If your parents are tyrants, and they abuse and torment you when you are small, when you can defend yourself, chances are, you will become a tyrant. And it's likely you will either marry a time it or find someone to tyrannized over and the cycle goes on forever and ever. I should know a lot about tyrants. I was a tyrant in my home. My kids, a couple of them are turning into tyrants. Some of my manuscript got all burned up last December in a fire in the bunker. I used to sleep in that old '29 Chevrolet over there. But a big storm last summer blew the roof off and I moved back in the bunker, had to move some of my stuff out just so I could find a place to sleep. Well, Christmas Eve had got down in the 30s and there was a 20 mile an hour wind off the water. I had a blazing fire there by the doorway. See where the suit is all over the top there. And the boards I had propped up over the doorway caught fire. It was all I could do to get myself and the dogs out. The fire burned up all my fishing gear, my boots, typewriter, the transistor radio the Mr. [Dune] and gave me and nearly $500 worth of my best stuff. I never did find about 100 pages of my book. I sure hope my sister May, who lives in Charlotte save the copies I sent her. Let me tell you, I got so mad at May the first winter I stayed down here. I wrote her a letter and told her to bring me some of my clothes and stuff I needed that I had left at her home. Well I waited and waited. And a couple of weeks later I got a letter from she said she came down here and couldn't find me. I was shaking. I was so mad when I wrote her back. I asked her how could you drive 200 miles 400 miles roundtrip from Charlotte and drive all the way down to Fort Fisher and not find a bunker located about a mile from the rocks a quarter mile down the sand road off highway 421. While here I am literally freezing to death in my shirtsleeves in January. She finally loaded up a bunch of clothes on the bus and I had thumbed up to Wilmington and got them. Now if I can only find the time to write with all my friends come see me from sunup to sundown. I had over 17,000 people come to see me in the last 12 months according to my guestbook I started after Edward found me. If it weren't for the hoodlums who'd come in here late at night and beat me up and wreck or steal all my stuff. I figure I can get it finished in another 12 months or so. If I make any money from my book, and if I can ever pay my expenses. I'm going to build a school here at Fort Fisher and teach people common sense the lack of which is what is ruining the society that and prejudice. You know the darnest thing happened here three years ago, just when the place was shaping up. A preacher fella Reverend [Barn], drove his old beat up trailer down my sandy road here and parked it over there by my garden and set up camp. You have to understand I don't want anyone stand here on my property uninvited. But I do get lonely out here sometimes with the mosquitoes and the thieves and all. I figured it might be nice to have someone to talk to since MP passed away and someone who could watch over my fishing boats and keep an eye on my stuff when I was in town getting supplies at the A&P. We went into partnership for a while preaching down by the pier at Kure Beach, we'd flip a coin and who would start once the people started gathering round, and the other would finish up and pass the hat. As things go, sometimes we wouldn't seem to see things eye to eye.

(35:21)
One Sunday, he interrupted me in the middle of something important, I was saying, and I lost my train of thought. Then he jumped right in and tried to finish what I was saying and turn things completely around with some new age thinking. Then we got into an argument and everybody started shaking their heads and leaving some of more laughing. Of course, I've laughed myself and what I've heard some people preach. What difference would it make to people what I believe or don't believe, who's to say who's right? People ought to be free to think what they want. I've studied 319 religions. I think the Unitarians are the only ones fit to believe. And I used to be a Baptist, but that's my opinion, mind you. I've got a million of them. Just ask anybody around here. That reminds me when I dropped out of Boiling Springs, and I was studying to be a minister. The teacher was telling us about the theory of evolution, but was changing it all around. I got mad at him too, and I was expelled from class. I left school never looked back. Some religious folks just get to me. Sometimes they use the Bible like a weapon and shake it at you. They ought to preach more about love like I do around here. Well, when we got back to camp later that morning, I told preacher, Vaughn, I thought it would be better if he found himself a new place to live. We had a pretty heated discussion about it, I recall, and he refused to leave. That night after finishing a 14 page letter to Edward. I took the nuts off the wheels to his camper. The next morning, as I was feeding the dogs, he walked over and accused me of being a thief and threatened to call the deputies on me. I probably shouldn't have told him to go right ahead. Because the next week, I had to walk to Wilmington and sit in front of a judge. He smiled at me and was real understanding that I didn't have any other clothes to wear except those brown shorts and my straw hat. He said he wouldn't fine me or put me in jail. If I gave the nuts back. Well, I'm here alone now. Except for my dogs, my cats. They're all the company I need at night. Sometimes we have some pretty stimulating conversation. I used to have a great dog years ago and the family and I lived in Shelby taught him to ride right up on the front fender of my old Model T. One day as I was in my watch repair shop, darned if he didn't jump up on somebody else's Model T and I watched him ride away into the sunset. You know, I don't understand why all these people keep trying to run me off my land. I'm making a good living making trinkets and gifts for people from stuff I find washed up on the beach. Even write some poetry for folks sometimes match books or scraps of paper I find laying around. My favorite poem is everybody loves a lover. Everybody loves me. Come let's have a little fun down beside the sea. Get 10 cents for that one. Was it written in 100 times. Mostly my friends want to put their arms around me and asked me to pose for pictures. Want to take my picture? Most folks pay me 50 cents for picture but you can take one for free. Tell all your friends about the old hermit. Tell them to come see me and I'll show them a real millionaires vacation. Anyway, the army used to send someone out here every 30 days or so with an eviction notice said I was on their land. The people from the state of North Carolina come out here to even Mr. Hugh Morton himself tried run me off. Mr. South from Raleigh came out not long ago to check on me, said his boss was concerned about my living here on state owned property. Shucks I must have had 250 people out here visiting that day. He smiled and said I was the least expensive tourist attraction that the state had for me not to worry about having to leave my home. Well, the army finally took me into court in front of a federal judge. Sure enough, he said I was not anyone's land, not the armies or the states. My attorney traced the ownership all the way back to King Charles showed them that my track of land had been formed after the original maps were drawn of the area. And over the years, nature had built up the land where I was living. He said it was mine now by homestead rights. I used to dream of leaving my children and grandchildren a heritage but his life would have it. Destiny has provided them with the Hermitage by the Sea I've seen all those tractors down the road there looks like the fix the plow up some roads for something. Don't make common sense to me for someone to make new roads around here. When they won't even spend the money to fix mine, maybe they know something I don't guess I'd better file a deed for my land like Edward has told me to do for years. We had a lot of father to son discussions about it. We seem to talk a lot more these days than we used to, he brings a whole family down here to see me once or twice a year. At least he brings as many as he can squeeze into his Buick. He's got nine kids. Anyway, I told him more than once, if I had a deed, I'd have to pay taxes on it. I'd never paid taxes in my life. How can I do that making from three to $5 a week in the winter and five to $7 a week in the summer? Looks like I'll have to walk up to the courthouse in Wilmington to file my claim before somebody pushes me and my house into the ocean with one of those bulldozers. Like a man told me he was going to do a couple of months ago. I guess I better get going. Got to feed my dogs. Need to catch me some dinner in the sound before it gets dark. Gonna have me some millionaires aerations Thanks for visiting with the old hermit. You're gonna leave some change here in the frying pan if you like.

(41:13)
In the early morning of June 4 1972. Five young boys walked down the sandy road to visit the hermit. The Morning Dew was still on the ground and there was an unusual stillness in the air. When they walked to the bunker and peered over the plywood boards leaning against the doorway. They found the lifeless body of Robert Harrell. A large crowd had gathered within a short time as news of the hermit's death spread through the area. Deputies from New Hanover County were some of the first to arrive. One of the deputy stopped short of saying that the old man had been murdered. The official cause of death was listed as a heart attack, although numerous photographs were taken showing a bloodied sand covered body. Drag marks led from the water's edge where the hermit's bedding was found around the bunker according to a former deputy, the ground appeared turned up when there were signs of an apparent struggle. Several articles of evidence were discovered including a brown and white size 11 wingtip shoe found stuck in the mud near the bunker. The medical examiner reluctant to conduct an autopsy maintained death was from natural causes. The case of the hermit's death has been reopened at least three times as new evidence and theories unfold, but the mystery is still unsolved. Each day brings answers of who and why. On what would have been his 100th Birthday both the cities of Carolina and Kure Beach honored the hermit and declared February 2, 1993 Robert E. Harrill Day. It was remembered for his contributions to the local businesses and becoming the largest tourist attraction in the area. Like the row who had built his cabin in the woods outside Concord, Massachusetts 100 years before maintaining his lifestyle of voluntary poverty. Many residents still remember the little man with a dark brown skin ragged shorts, love beads and old straw hat, living apart from society in the tiny concrete building on the shores of the Cape Fear River and the Atlantic Ocean. Although originally buried in his hometown of Shelby, his final resting place is in the Federal Point Cemetery near Carolina Beach, just a few miles from where he spent the happiest days of his life. His grave lies within 100 feet of his old friend MP Hewitt, where they share the shadows of the towering oaks at sunset. 23 years after his death, there is the continuing search for the hermit's treasure. And for the ghost that walks the dunes in the moonlight. You can sometimes hear his laughter as the wind howls through the empty bunker in the darkness. Again, there is a growing desire to put the pieces together of Robert Harrill's life and death. As we feel the pressures of society, the loss of personal freedoms through government control. We remember and admire the Fort Fisher Hermit who found his freedom and his meaning of life as we hurry through our individual lives, in a desperate search to find ours. This is Michael Way. This true story is based on the life of Robert E. Harrill, as written by Michael Edwards, and recorded at Southwynde studios, Wilmington, North Carolina.

[This text is machine generated and may contain errors.]

[The text below is printed on the cassette case insert]

Robert E. Harrill
"The Fort Fisher Hermit"

The true story has never been told about Robert Harrill,
who at age 62, when most others have lived out their lives,
started over again. Mr. Harrill never considered himself a
success in life until he decided to leave everything he knew
behind and live alone with nature.

In his new life of absolute independence, through violent
extremes of nature, continuous harassment from government
officials, law enforcement officers, rednecks, and other
hoodlums, he found an incredible inner-strength and spirituality.
On a tiny strip of land between the Cape Fear River and Atlantic
Ocean, he taught the thousands that walked down the long sandy
road to his home about the crooked politicians, robber barons,
greedy millionaires, corrupt law enforcement officers,
prostitutes, tyrants, and the need for "Common Sense".

In the 17 years he lived alone, he survived by his wits
and from donations from his friends. Twenty three years after
his death, he is still fondly remembered by most who knew
him...others still search for his hidden money and share a
horrible secret.

This is his story, compiled from dozens of interviews and
letters from friends and family, hundreds of personal letters
and musings, and countless newspaper and magazine articles
from East Carolina University's Department of History and
Archives.

Story: Michael F. Edwards
Voice: Michael Way
Photo: George Dunn
Song: Boge Harrill
Technician: Jack Bowden
Recorded at Southwynde Studios courtesy of Randy Drew.

©1995 M.F. Edwards, The Hermit Society