Fort Fisher Hermit: The "Common Sense" Poems - Paperback

by Kristian Kuhn (Author)

In 1955 at the age of 62, after a string of unsuccessful careers and a failed marriage, Robert Harrill put up his thumb and hitchhiked two hundred and sixty miles to Fort Fisher North Carolina. He set up a simple home in an abandoned World War II era bunker near the Cape Fear River along a salt marsh and quickly became known to the locals as the Fort Fisher Hermit. The Fort Fisher Hermit was not a hermit in the truest sense of the word. Harrill was far from isolated, and in fact had many visitors every year. His guest registry, a notebook held down by sea shells, recorded a total of over 100,000 visitors. It has been said that Harrill was the second largest tourist attraction in North Carolina second to the USS North Carolina. Harrill died under "mysterious" circumstances in June 1972. His body was found in his bunker by a group of teenage boys on an early Sunday morning. Covered in sand, Harrill's bloodied body had multiple wounds and was laying spread eagle on a pile of garbage. Some people suspected that he was killed by a group of "thugs" while others believed his death was the result of a prank gone wrong. The New Hanover County coroner ruled that the cause of death was a heart attack. A formal investigation into the possibility of his murder has never been conducted.In this collection of poems, Kurt K. Shinian gathers the fragmentary tales that Robert Harrill left behind. Harrill's main purpose in retreating from society was to write a book he entited "Common Sense." Not much was ever written. Shinian pieces together the anecdotal stories that many of Harrill's visitors have retold over the years in this rich series of poems.