Democratic Sentinel, Volume 21, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 July 1897 — WHY JOHN STARNES ISA HERMIT [ARTICLE]

WHY JOHN STARNES ISA HERMIT

Fled to the Mountains from Conscription and Kemaina in Seclnalon still. Thirty-five years ago John Starnes, then in the prime of manhood, 11 veil near Blacksburg, York County, 8. C., and but a few miles from the battlefields of Cowpens and Kings mountain, where the Americans whipped the British. But the proximity of the.battleflelds did not imbue a warlike spirit in tho breast of Starnes. The conscription officer cast covetous eyes on the mountaineer’s stalwart frame, and Starnes took the hint and to the woods almost simultaneously. They searched for him, but Starnes was a better runner than a fighter, and he kept out of the way, out of the war and in the woods. Ho had an old musket and a supply of ammunition, and the fare of the woods was better then that in the town. Starnes became fond of the life and when the war was over and conscription officers had lost their dreaded power Starnes still remained In the wilds of York. And there he is now living. His homo Is not a romantic cave In the rocks, but Is a curiously constructed, miserable looking hut, of much the shape of an Eskimo snowhouse, without a window, an‘d with a hole about two feet high which serves as a door, through which the hermit crawls. There is no fireplace in the house. When snow Is on the mountain and the north winds howl over the Blue ridge, the old man builds a fire at the entrance of his hut. Starnes Is not a picturesque figure. His long, white, unkempt hair and beard and the ragged clothes that can hardly hang on his frame make him an unprepossessing object, whose very name is used to scare children In the neighborhood. The hermit does not like to have visitors, and shows temper If questioned. He forages on bis neighbors. He has relatives who have offered him a home and means of living In comfort, but the hermit has declined all advances. His neighbors call him “Wild John Starnes.”—Boston Post.