The diet of the hermit of Mosquito Pond

By Dan Szczesny
HippoPress.com

When I first heard about the crazy old hermit, he was a ragged mystery of a man; a turn-of-the-century recluse who lived like Thoreau, only without the poetic sensibilities or occasional trips to the town.

He was Manchester myth in the flesh, a creepy little man who scared children. And then there was the snake. I heard whispers, maybe at the historic association, maybe in conversations at the Red Arrow, that the hermit of Mosquito Pond ate snakes.

It seemed likely. Every town has a hermit, and for Manchester to have any early 20th century madman was comforting in a way. As the Millyard exploded and the city became a center of technology, one man stood his ground against the tides of change. A scary man, who ate snakes and lived in a Unabomber-like shack.

The true story was surprisingly easy to track down, thanks mostly to a photographer by the name of Ulric Bourgeois who became interested in the Hermit during one of the photographer's excursions into the woods to hunt for good locations to shoot. Over a several year period, Bourgeois shot dozens of pictures of the Hermit, whose real name was Charles Alban Lambert.

Then, just a few years ago, Bourgeois' daughter, Antoinette, was interviewed and revealed more about the Hermit. Legend has it that the Hermit was a British immigrant who moved to the woods to escape a broken heart. He struck up a friendship with Bourgeois, and left the woods often for visits to town and to friends, and to sell herbs that he grew at his shack.

He was neither cruel nor crazy, according to Antoinette. In fact, he loved animals. And what about eating snakes? Turns out a famous Bourgeois photograph depicting the Hermit playing with a friendly snake near his home was likely published in a newspaper of the day. Through the years, that image of the Hermit was misrepresented. The snake handler became a snake eater. The kindly, broken hearted recluse became a mean-spirited outsider.

Once again, an urban legend was born.