The last year has been hard on hermits, even though they would seem better equipped than most people to deal with isolation, social distancing and lockdowns.
RIVER DAVE
In summer 2021, after 30 years of living alone in a remote part of the New Hampshire woods, David Lidstone, 81, known locally as “River Dave”, was evicted from his hut and jailed for squatting in a dispute with the land’s owner. Lidstone, a former logger who lived self-sufficiently, chopping his own firewood, hunting, and growing his own vegetables maintained that he had a verbal agreement with the owner’s father, now dead, that entitled him to live there, but the owner begged to differ and wanted him out. A local celebrity, he was well-known to boaters on the Merrimack River and over $200,000 was donatedmoney raised to buy him some remote land where he can live legally and return to his hermit ways. “He loves to be in nature… We are still planning to build or purchase a home in the spring,” said Jodie Gedeon, a kayaker who has known Lidstone for years.
