Hermit Street
From Worcester Activist wiki
Also RATTLESNAKE HILL AND PARSON HILL BLVD.
A dime in 1876 could bring you an organ concert in the heart of the woods on Rattlesnake Hill.
The musician was a genuine hermit.
“His animals are docile and come at his call like kittens,” wrote a reporter, “and when he plays the organ, his goats gather round the door, evidently enjoying the music.”
Andrew P. Clark, a Cambridge music teacher in the 1800’s, was left with a partial paralysis, following a serious illness.
It “also affected his mental organization,” wrote the reporter. “He has chosen his present mode of life voluntarily and appears to thoroughly enjoy it.
“His chief delight is a fine cabinet organ which he has purchased and is trying to pay for. On this he plays quite readily, collecting from visitors a fee of ten cents per guest.
“He keeps half-a-dozen goats and manages a garden, and with goat’s milk and butter and cheese therefrom, and his vegetables, he secures a healthful and agreeable diet.”
Hermit Clark was a nephew of Solomon Parsons, a widely-known Worcesterite in his day, who lived to 93.
Parsons had been to the Holy Land; was a zealous believer in God. About 1845, he bought ten acres of land on Rattlesnake Hill-the ledge rising to the west of Coes Pond off Mill street.
He built a temple of rock, flanked on each side by stone, towers, four feet square and seven feet high. Here on pleasant Sundays, the long-bearded, low-voiced farmer, held services.
Near here the Hermit lived in a stone house.
Solomon, in letters one and a half inches high, chiseled his deed to the land on the flat surface of a large rock…. “this land, to be governed by the above mentioned laws and together with the spirit of God.” It still stands.
About 1883, the Hermit gave up his solitary habits, returned to the multitude and became a familiar figure in the streets.
For him, Hermit street, off Fairview avenue, was named in 1940.
Parsons Hill boulevard was named after the Parsons family.
The core of this article comes from A History of Your City Streets.
