Albion Mills Resident - 1890

He was labeled “a queer roadside character.” But in his own way he made an impact in the Albion Mills area in November 1890, and also attracted the attention of a reporter for the Hamilton Herald.

This article is to the memory of an unnamed but memorable character who drifted in and out of the Hamilton collective memory, but left a mark in his own way.

The article on this gentle man in the Hamilton Herald began as follows :

“People in the neighbourhood of Albion Mills are all agog with curiosity about a seemingly harmless and inoffensive little man who has recently taken up his abode there. He is peculiar, certainly, and his peculiaration of character have caused the mild excitement of that locality.”

He quietly came to the attention of residents near Albion Mills late in the fall. A short distance south of the mountain brow, in the forests along the Red Hill Creek, a very small dwelling appeared. It was a lean-to, between two and three feet high, and about four feet by two feet in dimension.

          In it a little grey-haired older man set up his homestead :

          “He took possession of the lean-to and began the daily round of household cares. Somewhere he picked up a dishpan, and taking it home, converted it into a stove. The chips and firing he picked up in the weary woods around him. Somewhere else he got a link of stovepipe, and this he put through the roof to ventilate the place and carry off the smoke which rose from the chip fire in the rusty old dishpan.

“The lean-to was well-ventilated before the little old man put the stovepipe in, for the walls and roof gaped to the elements, and an unprotected opening served for the door.”

The Herald man who visited the scene of the unconventional dwelling had a chance to meet the occupant who he called a “long-haired mystic” and noted that he was It will be noted, however, that while he was unconventional enough in most respects”, he was also “ desirous of conforming to some extent with modern sanitary ideas.”

          After interviewing some nearby Albion Mills residents about their new neighbour, the reporter learned that “through the day he roamed around promiscuously or sat huddled up in the little box which did him duty for a home. At night he slept there without any covering save his own clothing, which is heavy and in fairly good repair.

          The little old man’s appetite is simple and easily satisfied. He calls at adjacent farm houses and begs bread and milk, which he eats with evident relish. Apparently he has no desire for anything more substantial.”

          Approaching the man, the reporter described him as being, “very reticent about himself and his affairs and will tell the most persistent enquirer nothing except that he intends remaining in the lean-to all winter. If he does, he will freeze to death. The lean-to is wholly unprotected from the weather. Repeated enquiries have failed to elicit his name. His face is weather-beaten and world-worn, his hair long and gray, and his beard and whiskers flow down on his breast. He seems sane enough and quite intelligent.”

          Nothing else remains to be known as to the fate of this man. Hopefully he survived the winter and continued his peaceful ways for many years to come.