Who is the Fort Fisher hermit?
Robert Edward Harrill (1893-1972) was, at one time — at least, by his own claims — the Cape Fear coast’s second top-drawing tourist attraction after the Battleship North Carolina Memorial. In one summer alone, an estimated 17,000 visitors trekked their way to an abandoned World War II-vintage Army bunker at Federal Point (not far from the modern N.C. Aquarium at Fort Fisher). There, they could see (and occasionally smell) the feisty coastal character, who would hold forth on his personal philosophy in sessions he called his “School of Common Sense.” His guestbook, weighted down with sea shells, eventually contained more than 100,000 signatures, with visitors from all 50 states and at least 20 foreign countries. Harrill — who had apparently visited Carolina Beach periodically for many years — first settled in the area in 1955, living in a tent not far from the seashore. (A few locals claim he arrived a year earlier and may have weathered Hurricane Hazel.) By most accounts, New Hanover s
