One of the more interesting figures from North Carolina history is Robert E. Harrill, who is known to many as the Fort Fisher Hermit. Harrill was born on February 2, 1893, in Shelby, North Carolina. His early life was turbulent after being raised in an abusive family, and dealing with many struggles into adulthood. His later life after the age of 60 would see Harrill become an attraction and later a legend for living on the marshes in the Fort Fisher area.
Harrill arrived in 1955 after leaving a mental institution in Morganton, hitchhiking 260 miles to the coast. At first, he lived in a tent before squatting in a World War II bunker beside the Cape Fear River, where he often collected driftwood to furnish his home and subsisted on a diet of fish, clams, and oysters.
While his story seems sad, it was nature that he loved the most and meeting the numerous visitors who stopped by to talk with the man called the hermit. But the biggest mystery outside of why he sought refuge for 17 years along the coast of North Carolina is the way he died.
On June 4, 1972, the body of 79-year-old Robert E. Harrill was discovered in his bunker. At first, the New Hanover County coroner pronounced the cause of death as a heart attack, yet rumors suggested Harrill may have died after a violent attack. A fisherman alleged to have witnessed a group of three men speeding away in a car from the scene.
At the time of his death, Fred Pickler was in the process of documenting Harrill’s life in pictures when he received a phone call one morning that Harrill’s body had been found inside his bunker. Mr. Pickler was at the crime scene investigation and observed Harrill lying on his back, covered in sand, with cuts on his arms, like he’d been dragged on the ground, and immediately became suspicious of foul play.
Even with the information available, there was no autopsy, and the case was closed as a natural death.
In 1984, the body was exhumed, but the test results were inconclusive. Harrill was buried in a cemetery off River Road near Fort Fisher and later moved to the Federal Point Cemetery at Dow Road, Carolina Beach.
Written By: John G. Clark Jr
Image: Museum of Coastal Carolina