A Hermit's Death
He Lived Thirty-Five Years on the Green Pond Mountain.
Middletown, N.Y., Jan. 28. -- An eccentric and a somewhat noted person was found dead a few days ago in the lonely cabin which he had occupied as a hermitage for more than 35 years on the Green Pond Mountain Range, near the northern borders of New Jersey. His name was David Day, and his age at death, as near as can be estimated, was about 70 years. A fox hunter who by chance called at his solitary hut found him lying dead and cold on the rude trestle which he occupied as a bed. He had evidently died quite suddenly, without much suffering, and of natural causes. In so far as the people roundabout knew he had no relatives or near friends. He left no money or possessions to speak of, and was buried by the town.
Day was a man of good abilities and fair education, and during the period of his hermit life he exhibited a wonderful knowledge of the nature and medicinal qualities of the wild plants of the forests. In fact, during these years he supplied his simple necessities by the exercise of his skill in gathering herbs, roots, and barks for medicinal purposes. Every botanic medicine dealer and every physician of that school in New York City and New Jersey knew "Old Dave Day," and most of them, at one time or another, were his customers. If any extremely rare sample of the fields or forests was wanted he was the person who was intrusted with the task of finding it.
In his early manhood he worked for a number of years as a hatter in the shops at Orange, N.J., and was free of eccentricities and in demeanor not unlike other young men. The story goes that when he was approaching middle age he fell in love with a very young girl, who engaged to marry him; but when the day appointed for the wedding was near at hand she jilted him, and ran off with and married a young fellow nearer her own age. It was then that Day gave up working at his trade and withdrew from association with his fellow-men to the mountain solitude where the long years of his after-life were spent and where he died, as he had lived, in utter isolation and loneliness.
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