The Hermit of Maple Island

"Cape Vincent Eagle," December 22, 1927

One day in the spring of 1865, a stranger arrived in a small Northern New York hamlet called Fishers Landing.  He was so silent and secretive, it ironically earned him what was undoubtedly unwanted attention.  Years later, a Watertown newspaper recalled that the visitor was “very reticent and refused to talk of cities he had visited or say where his home was located.”  This curious traveler was no ordinary vagrant--he was well-dressed, intelligent, and was obviously what used to be called “a gentleman.”  He was described as about thirty, with swarthy skin, black hair and a noticeable southern accent.

The man took a hotel room, where he holed up for some days.  Then, he moved to Clayton’s Maple Island, in the middle of the St. Lawrence River.  He built a crude lumber hut, which, as it turned out, would be his home for the rest of his days.  He almost completely disappeared from human view, with no company except a supply of books and his violin.  He only left the island to make rare visits to local farms to buy food and other basic necessities.  He paid for his purchases with British gold.

One night in the fall of 1865, the area was hit by a violent storm.  When it was observed that a fire had broken out on Maple Island, those on shore assumed it had been struck by lightning.  Then, three or four men could be seen running around the island, presumably Good Samaritans helping Maple Island’s sole resident escape the flames.

The next morning, when some of the locals went to the island to offer assistance to the hermit, they found that something far grimmer had taken place.  The hut had been burned down, and his boat and stash of gold pieces were missing.  The hermit’s body was found near the shore on the opposite side of the island.  He had been, in a reporter’s graphic words, “literally chopped to pieces with an ax or other sharp weapon.”  

Although it was assumed that the motive for the murder was robbery, no one had any idea who committed this gruesome deed.  It was said that a week before the murder, three strangers with southern accents had arrived in the area.  On the day of the murder, they rented a boat.  After they returned the boat late that night, they hired someone to row them to Alexander Bay.  They were never seen again.  If these were indeed the hermit’s killers, it does not appear that anyone even tried to have them traced.  After the coroner gave the mangled remains a cursory examination and the corpse was buried on a strip of sandy beach near the burned out-hut, the investigation into this killing was essentially over.  (Regarding this burial, in 1891, a local resident claimed that in 1877 “a certain Wall Street broker, now dead,” had robbed the grave of the hermit’s skull, which he had made into a tobacco box.)

In the years following the hermit’s death, people have had a great deal of fun speculating about who this man was and why he was killed.  According to some reports, his murderers had slashed his chest with three crosses in the shape of a triangle.  This was known to be the symbol of the Knights of the Golden Circle, a pro-Southern, pro-secession secret society.  That led to the theory that the murder of the hermit was some sort of assassination carried out by the Knights.  Many people found it plausible that this reclusive southern gentleman was somehow involved with that ever-popular inspiration for wild legends, the Lincoln Assassination.  In 1896, the “Watertown Re-Union” pointed out that Jake Thompson, a Toronto-based agent for the Confederacy, had paid John Surratt $100,000 in English gold to help assassinate Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, and other Union leaders.  Surratt was accompanied by John A. Payne, brother of Lewis Payne, who would later be hanged for his attempted assassination of William Henry Seward.  John Payne was said to be the treasurer of the Knights of the Golden Circle.

Some authorities came to believe that the hermit may well have been John Payne.  According to this scenario, it was Payne who was actually given the $100,000 which was meant to be divided up among the would-be assassins.  Instead, Payne fled with the gold and hid himself on Maple Island, hoping to remain invisible until the coast was clear.  Unfortunately for him, his former co-conspirators succeeded in tracking him down, whereupon they took their bloody revenge.

For what it’s worth, this story was corroborated years later by one Robert McAdam.  As he was on his deathbed, he confided to a friend that he had been another member of the secret society to which Payne belonged.  McAdam and Payne had been part of the plot to kill Lincoln.  McAdam was supposed to get a share in the gold Payne had received.  After Payne betrayed them, he had been one of the three men who had killed him.  After all, by running off with the gold, Payne had broken his oath of loyalty to the Knights, which, according to the rules of the society, meant death.

In 1914, the daughter of a now-dead woman named Jenny Hickey shared her mother’s story.  Hickey had been a dairy maid at one of the farms which sold food to the hermit.  She was often assigned to deliver these goods to the hermit’s island hut.  As the man was handsome and personable, she enjoyed making these visits.

Understandably, Jenny became very curious about why such a charming and cultured man chose such a lonely, sparse existence.  When she questioned him, he was reluctant to share anything about himself, but she was able to learn that he had fought for the Confederacy under Stonewall Jackson and Lee.  He showed her a book of Confederate war songs, revealing that he was the author of one of them, the “Death of Jackson.”  The songwriter was listed as  “John A. Payne.”  The hermit begged Hickey to never reveal his identity, as it could well cost him his life.  A few days later, Hickey’s sailor fiance returned home after a long voyage, and they were soon married.  She never returned to the farm, and never saw the hermit again.

However, local historian A.E. Keech dismissed all the Payne stories as “pure fiction.”  Keech also refuted the allegations that the hermit’s body had been found mutilated with crosses.  According to him, after the fire on the island, the hermit merely vanished forever.  He believed the mysterious man was really another southerner, Godfrey J. Hyams.  During the Civil War, Hyams was first assistant to Toronto’s chief Confederate commissioner.  In 1864, he learned of the Confederate plot to burn down New York City, and tipped off the Federal authorities.  As a reward for this bit of double-dealing, he was paid $100,000 in cash, after which he wisely fled town.  On his way to Halifax, he realized he was being followed, so he changed his route and sought an obscure hiding place, which he found on Maple Island.  As with the Payne theory, the Keech scenario has him murdered by the men he had betrayed, with his body either spirited away or lying on the bottom of the river.

Was the hermit a former Confederate who paid the ultimate price for disloyalty to his friends?  Or, more prosaically, was he just some ordinary uninteresting citizen with, for whatever reason, a strong taste for solitude?  (To be frank, I lean toward the latter.)  In either case, the tale of the Hermit of Maple Island provides New York’s Thousand Islands region with its most colorful legend.