>>1658525I agree 100%
The first dedicated history of the town was written in the 1850s by Emory Washburn, a town resident, Harvard lawyer, and then-retired Governor of the State of Massachusetts. He grew up surrounded by Revolutionary War veterans, and his history book is long and meticulous. His version of the story doesn't mention gold, or pirates, at all. That shit was almost definitely made up more recently.
Even he says in his book that this tale of the "hermit" is likely invented "lore", typically colorful 18th/19th century storytelling. But of course the version of the story that permeated through to the 20th century and today talks of berried gold.
Fun Fax: the version today names the hermit as Arthur Carey. In the 1855 book Arthur Carey is well documented and demonstrated as a normal colonist who purchased a plot of land (name, lot, and plot number still exist in the original papers) and signed the compact with the other 49 families who founded the town. After a couple decades he moved his family to a nearby town and sold to a local church. It just so happens that his plot of land is the one that this supposed hermit lived on, so now every dumbass says "Arthur Carey was the pirate goldhermit!". Most of what people believe today about this legend we know isn't true, but where exactly the grain of truth in the story lies we'll never really know. The hermit tale goes back to the 1700s at least, the pirate/gold part certainly does not.
