История «Отшельника Уабаша»: как 14-летний мальчик нашел руины дома легендарного ветерана Гражданской войны

Greg Parrott recalls how he first found “Solitude.” It was 1962. Parrott was 14 and spent a lot of time fishing the Wabash and Embarras rivers with his uncles. One summer day, as they approached the mouth of Turman Creek on the Indiana side of the Wabash, he spotted the ruins of a cabin on the high bank. The roof had collapsed, he remembered, and the walls were leaning. “It was destined not to remain very much longer,” Parrott said. “What’s that?” he asked his uncle, Floyd Weaver. “That’s Solitude,” Weaver answered, explaining it was once the home of a legendary area figure. “And that started my interest in the Hermit of the Wabash,” Parrott told an audience during a recent talk at the Crawford County Historical Society. He spoke about the mysterious hermit, his true identity and his connection to two of the most infamous characters in American history. Southern man Seventy-seven years before Parrott’s discovery, a man came up the Wabash, rowing against the current. He stopped for a while at Merom, Ind., where he told fishermen his name was Capt. Roland Smythe. From his apparent age, it was clear he must have served during the Civil War. From his accent, it seemed obvious he had been a Confederate. That much alone was true. “He was not Roland Smythe,” Parrott said. “He was not a captain. He was a colonel, a full bird colonel. His name was Robert Alexander Caskie and he was famous.” Caskie was born in 1829 or 1830 in Virginia, the son of a successful tobacco farmer and merchant who had immigrated from Scotland. He was not, as some sources claim, the scion of one of Virginia’s oldest families, but that didn’t stop him from scaling the heights of Virginian society. He attended the University of Virginia and in 1859 he married Amanda Wallace Gregory, daughter of former governor John Munford Gregory. He associated with the likes of Gen. Robert E. Lee. Caskie’s wife and mother-in-law would bake lemon cake for the general. It was his favorite. Caskie was active in the militia, serving as quartermaster for the Richmond Grays.  The Gregorys were slave owners. The Caskies, despite their success, was still not affluent enough to buy slaves, but they did at times rent them. His true feelings about slavery are unknown, but whatever they were, they must have been challenged by events that occurred just months before his marriage. “I’ve been researching Caskie for years,” Parrott said. “I would really love to sit down and talk to him. He grew up with that evil institution and I think everything that happened had to have a profound effect on him.” A-mouldering in the grave John Brown was “an extreme abolitionist,” Parrott said. On Oct. 16, 1859, Brown, convinced he was doing God’s work, led 21 men in an attack on the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Va. Their aim was to capture weapons that would be given to freed slaves, who would in turn join Brown in destroying slavery. It was a failure; local militia and U.S. Marines under Lee crushed the raid, killing most of Brown’s men, including two of his sons. Brown was seriously wounded and imprisoned. He was promptly sentenced to hang for murder, inciting slave insurrection and treason against the state of Virginia. While he welcomed the opportunity to be martyred for the cause, authorities feared other abolitionists would attempt to free Brown. Militia groups, including the Richmond Grays, were brought in to guard him. Besides Caskie, the Grays brought along a new enlistee. As they prepared to embark, an onlooker volunteered to join them. Recognizing the famous actor John Wilkes Booth, the militiamen welcomed him. It’s not clear just how well Caskie knew Booth, but he apparently got to know Brown well. He would bring him newspapers and found he and the abolitionist, as educated, religious men, had common ground. “Instead of hating him, he started talking to him,” Parrott said. “I would like to know what influence Brown had on him.” Caskie clearly had influence on Brown; it was he who convinced Brown to write his wife and have her visit before his execution. And when Brown was hanged, Caskie was there, as evidenced by a photograph of the Grays. Standing behind Caskie, just over his left shoulder, is Booth. Battle hymn The Civil War began in 1861 and Caskie, like many others, pledged his service to his home state of Virginia. He joined the 10th Virginia Cavalry as a captain and would form and lead a unit known as Caskie’s Mounted Rangers. Later, he became a liaison officer, serving as an advisor and confidant to generals Lee, “Stonewall” Jackson and J.E.B. Stuart. He fought in several major battles, including Fredericksburg, Gettysburg and the Wilderness Campaign. In 1864, he was wounded during the Battle of Ream's Station, Va., Caskie spent several months recovering before returning to limited duty. By this point, he had been promoted to colonel. Caskie and his men fought at Appomattox Courthouse and were “heartbroken” when Lee surrendered. Many of them simply wandered away after the battle, taking their battle flags, which were supposed to be turned over to Union forces, with them. Caskie returned home and tried to renew the family tobacco business. The southern economy was in tatters, however, and the company soon went under. He moved the family to Missouri to start anew, but again the business failed. A proud man, Caskie swore he would not live on his wife’s money. Soon after that, he disappeared, with some saying he had drowned in the Mississippi River at St. Louis. Some believe Caskie abandoned his old life to evade creditors. Parrott suspects a different reason. He believes Caskie suffered Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome from the war and that his financial problems were only the final straw. Live a song No one knows if Caskie had a planned destination as he paddled up the Wabash. If he did, he put it out of his mind when he spotted a man standing atop the high bank at the confluence of the river and Turman Creek. He was the property owner, Dr.  John Durham of Sullivan, and he was standing on the highest point on the river for 10 miles, either north or south. Caskie, now Smythe, stopped to talk to Durham and soon asked if he could build a cabin on the bluff. The doctor agreed and Caskie settled in for more than 20 years. “He lived a long, long life,” Parrott said. "It gave him lots of time to think, which is what he did on the river.” Caskie lived simply and frugally; he read books, fished and harvested mussels, selling their shells to the button makers in Vincennes. Occasionally, he would pry open a mussel and find a pearl. Scarlett Williamson, Hutsonville, has a ring that bears a tiny river pearl in its center. It had belonged to her mother-in-law, Ida McCrory Williamson. Ida and her husband became friends with Caskie and when the original pearl fell out of the ring, he provided a replacement. He also sent the couple a letter, which Scarlet Williamson also has. It is signed “Roland Smythe.” He was called a hermit, but Caskie was sociable man and people often called on him at his two-room cabin. Those who met him found him educated and cultured. “People were fascinated by him,” according to Parrott. Caskie could quote lengthy passages of Shakespear verbatim. He was a poet, philosopher and naturalist whose ideas were compared to those of Henry David Thoreau and John Muir. Unlike them, however, he never wrote anything down. As Hoosier poet George Bicknell wrote in 1909, Caskie was “able to express his thought brilliantly [and] has often been urged to write for publication, but he always refuses… [He] says always he prefers to live his song rather than sing it.” On the Banks of the Wabash That song took a cacophonous turn in January 1904, one that would expose the hermit’s true identity. It’s been said that if the Wabash doesn’t flood in January, it will flood in June. In 1904, it picked Jan. 20 to overflow its banks. “The Wabash went crazy,” Parrott said. The icy flood waters were 2 feet deep in Solitude. Caskie, 74, was forced to spend 12 days in the cabin’s rafters with no heat or food. When the waters receded, he was suffering from exposure. He was about to suffer a different kind of exposure. The Sullivan newspaper reported his story of survival. It was picked up by an Indianapolis paper and from there it went national. His daughter saw a photo of “Roland Smythe” and recognized her long-lost father. “The jig was up,” Parrott said. One of his daughter came and urged him to come home with her. He declined, telling her, “I will stay near nature.” Traveling man But Caskie’s time as a hermit was almost at an end. Six years later, it was decided the 80-year-old could no longer make it on his own. His son, John, came and took him to Philadelphia. Solitude was left to fall into ruin.  Despite his age, Caskie wasn’t done living his song. In 1922, at the age of 90, he traveled to visit a daughter living in Paris. With her family, he toured France, Switzerland and Germany. On Aug. 31, 1928, Caskie died in Philadelphia. Still the outdoorsman, he spent too much time out in the summer sun and died of heat exhaustion at the age of 98. He was buried in Philadelphia, but the old hermit still had one last trip to take. He body was later transferred to Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, where he was at long last reunited with his wife. Solitude and the man who built it are long gone now, but some, such as Parrott, are still fascinated by the Hermit of the Wabash and wish they could learn more about him and his philosophy of life. “I’d love to sit by his cabin on Turman Creek and talk to him,” Parrott said.