Robert Harrill - Harrill Becomes The Hermit

Harrill Becomes The Hermit

The name "The Fort Fisher Hermit" came from Fort Fisher State Recreation Area, where he settled after leaving the mental institution in Morganton. Soon after arriving at Fort Fisher, Robert Harrill was arrested as a vagrant and sent to his hometown of Shelby by the sheriff's department with the help of the Traveler's Aide society. He returned the following summer and set up a simple home in an abandoned World War II era bunker near the Cape Fear River along a salt marsh. He was able to gather much of the food that he needed from the salt marsh and the nearby oyster beds. Harrill learned many of his survival skills from Empy Hewitt, a true hermit, who also lived in the salt marshes of the Fort Fisher area.

The Fort Fisher Hermit was not a hermit in the truest sense of the word. A hermit (from the Greek ἔρημος erēmos, signifying "desert", "uninhabited", hence "desert-dweller") is a person who lives to some greater or lesser degree in seclusion and/or isolation from society. 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 from all fifty states and at least 20 foreign countries. Harrill planted a vegetable garden to supplement his diet (what he grew and what he was able to gather in his surroundings). Visitors also provided the Fort Fisher Hermit with monetary donations that were placed in a frying pan that he left out for just such a purpose.