Mountain landscapes have many associations. One enduring notion is that mountains are places of refuge. They are places of seclusion -- sometimes isolation. There has been seclusion and even isolation aplenty here in the Smokies region. But where are the hermits? Have you ever noticed the dearth of hermits in our history?

The Scotch-Irish and other early white settlers may have been seeking independent isolation of a sort as they filtered into the mountains. In his fine early study, Western North Carolina: A History (from 1730 to 1913), published in Raleigh by Edwards & Broughton in 1914, John Preston Arthur noted that “So sequestered were many of these mountain coves which lay off the main lines of travel, that persons living within only short distances of each other were as though ‘oceans rolled between.’”

This is true enough, but it is also true that the early settlers were for the most part profoundly influenced by an ingrained sense of community. Every individual along a given watershed -- no matter how ornery, aloof, or isolated he of she might be -- was usually a part of the human fabric of that specific area.

Sometimes an individual might disappear from a community for awhile, taking an extended leave of absence. Arthur cites the instance of one Mont. Ray, who “soon after the Civil War ... killed Jack Brown of Ivy, between Ivy and Burnsville, and went to Buck’s tanyard, just west of Carver’s gap under the Roan mountain, where he supported himself making and mending shoes till many of the most important witnesses against him had gotten beyond the jurisdiction of the court -- by death or removal -- when he returned and stood trial in Burnsville and was acquitted. He had never been forty miles away, had remained there twelve years; yet no one had suspected he was a fugitive from justice.”

I repeat myself -- accounts of isolation and even forced refuge are commonplace here in the Southern Appalachians -- but where are the true hermits? For some years, I’ve wondered and worried about this, as I’m sure you have, too. It’s an important issue. Almost all of the mountainous regions of the world have a rich history of hermits. Think of the hermits -- old codgers with mules and frying pans and a dozen or so hunting dogs -- hiding away in the Rockies. And goodness knows every mountain peak in the Himalayas has a resident hermit (they call themselves monks) to this day.

Having searched high and wide in our region, I’ve located references to but two recluses who qualify as genuine hermits. I’d certainly appreciate hearing from you, if you know of others.

One of the hermits is David Grier, whose story was recorded by Silas McDowell, the 19th century Macon County historian. McDowell’s papers are housed in Special Collections at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. John Preston Arthur provides a gloss of McDowell’s notes on Grier under the heading “The Hermit of Bald Mountain.” David Grier is an instance of the hermit as rejected lover, which is not an uncommon event in hermit lore.

“In Yancey County, visible from the Roan, and 45 miles from Asheville, is a peak known as Grier’s Bald, named in memory of David Grier, a hermit, who lived upon it for 32 years,” states Arthur. “A native of South Carolina, he came into the mountains in 1798, and made his home with Colonel David Vance, whose daughter he fell in love with. His suit was not encouraged; the young lady was married to another, and Grier, with mind evidently crazed, plunged into the wilderness. This was in 1802. On reaching the bald summit of the peak that bears his name, he determined to erect a permanent lodge in one of the coves. He built a log house and cleared a tract of nine acres, subsisting in the meantime by hunting and on a portion of the $250 paid to him by Colonel Vance for his late services. He was twenty miles from a habitation. For years, he lived undisturbed; then settlers began to encroach on his wild domains.”

Alas, poor David Grier. He killed one of his encroachers, one Holland Higgins, but was cleared on the grounds of insanity. Returning home from the trial, Grier was himself slain by one of Higgins’ friends. For whatever reasons, violent endings are often the hermit’s fate. And martyrdom is what many of them are ultimately seeking, anyway.

Ironfoot Clarke, the second hermit, doesn’t fall into the category of love-crazed martyr. Indeed, I’m not sure just how to categorize Ironfoot.

Not too much is known about him. I became aware of Ironfoot about 20 years ago due to vague allusions circulating among old-timers here in Bryson City. I talked to many of those older folks, many now deceased, and scribbled down the following notes regarding Ironfoot.

Near the present day railway depot in Bryson City is a seven-acre tract now known as Bryson City Island. The tract is maintained by the Swain County Parks and Recreation Department and can presently be accessed via a marvelous swinging bridge that traverses a side channel of the Tuckaseigee River.

Ironfoot lived in a shack on the island when it didn’t have a name or a swinging bridge. It was isolated enough to qualify Ironfoot as a surefire hermit.

“Yes, that’s correct” Buddy Abbott told me some years ago with a twinkle in his eye, “old Ironfoot did live on the island. I saw him, but I don’t remember his real name. He had an artificial foot. That much is certain.”

“The story goes that he was a part of the James Gang, that he rode with Jesse James. That’s what I heard as a boy.”

“He got his foot shot off in a train robbery was what they said. Then he came here to Bryson City and lived on the island. That’s the story. I didn’t camp out there until Ironfoot was gone, and even then I was an apprehensive young fellow.”

Other long-time residents added bits and pieces to my Ironfoot file. Hazel Fry Sandlin came to town from the Nantahala Gorge in 1914 as an 11-year-old girl. She recalled that Ironfoot’s last name was Clarke, and that he is buried “west of town.” (I haven’t been able to locate Ironfoot’s last resting place.)
“Oh yes,” she said, “he had a saddle stirrup attached to his leg where he’d lost that foot. He never gave anybody any trouble, but our parents didn’t want us near the island because of the dangerous currents, so they told us tales about Ironfoot that made you stay on solid ground. No, I’ve never set foot on that island even though I can see it from my front porch right now.”

At the time I was conducting my Ironfoot investigations, Virginia Freck lived in the house in which she had been born that was, as she put it, “within spittin’ distance” of the island.

“Ironfoot lived by himself over there,” she recalled “in a house that people these days would call a shack. It was his home. People said he had been an ‘engineer’ for the James Gang. I supposed that maybe he sometimes drove the trains they robbed, if need be. That sort of engineer. I don’t know.”

“Mr. Clarke was all right. Some times he would get flooded out of his shack by the river. Then he’d have to climb that big tree over there to save himself. Folks would send him food across the water on a wire that was especially attached to the tree for such occasions. He would remain in the tree until the water subsided. Then he would come down and go about his business, whatever that was.”

(George Ellison is a writer who lives in Bryson City. He wrote the biographical introductions for the reissues of two Appalachian classics: Horace Kephart’s Our Southern Highlanders and James Mooney’s History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees. Readers can contact him at P.O. Box 1262, Bryson City, N.C., 287713, or at ellisongeorge@cs.com

 

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