A former hermit in New Hampshire whose cabin in the woods burned down after nearly three decades on the property that he was ordered to leave has been charged with trespassing there once again, turning a shed that survived the fire into a makeshift home outfitted with a wood stove.
There had been an outpouring of support for David Lidstone, 81 — better known as “River Dave” — since he was arrested in July last year and accused of squatting on property owned by a Vermont man.
His cabin burned down in August while he was jailed.
Photo: AP
Lidstone was a local celebrity to boaters and kayakers on the Merrimack River before his property dispute caught the attention of the masses, bringing in more than US$200,000 in donations to help him start a new, law-abiding life.
Lidstone, who was grateful for the support, had secured temporary housing as he figured out where to live next and believed that he could not go back to being a hermit.
However, he returned to the site in Canterbury in late November, turning the shed into a home.
He was arrested on a trespassing charge on Dec. 14 and faces a court hearing in March.
“Sometimes, you have to stand up for what is right,” Lidstone told reporters in a telephone interview from the site on Tuesday. “I’m 81, I’ve got nothing to lose.”
Lidstone is a logger by trade who chopped his firewood and grew his food in the woods along the river.
The property, undeveloped and mostly used for timber harvests, has been owned by the same family since 1963.
Lidstone had claimed that years ago, the current owner’s father gave his word — but nothing in writing — allowing him to live there.
In the summer, he was jailed on a civil contempt sanction and was told that he would be released if he agreed to leave the cabin following a property dispute that goes back to 2016.
The landowner, 86-year-old Leonard Giles, of South Burlington, Vermont, wanted Lidstone off the property.
“We’ll let the court address it,” Lisa Wade, an attorney for Giles, said on Tuesday of Lidstone’s arrest.
In the summer, both sides agreed to arrange for Lidstone to collect his cats, chickens and possessions at the site.
Lidstone also was given permission to hire a surveyor to give him “peace of mind,” Judge Andrew Schulman said.
As of Tuesday, Lidstone said he was unable to get someone to come out to survey the land yet.
A fire destroyed the cabin on Aug. 4, hours after Lidstone defended himself during a court hearing.
He was released from jail the next day after the judge ruled that he would have less incentive to return to “this particular place in the woods,” now that the cabin had burned down.
Canterbury Fire Chief Michael Gamache said that the fire was caused by accident.
He said a representative of Giles who was starting to demolish the cabin on Aug. 4 disabled solar panels, which still had electrical charge in them.
He also used a power saw to cut into metal supports that held the panels onto the roof.
Either action could have created sparks to start making things smoke.
“What can I say, Dave is where he is happiest the most,” Jodie Gedeon, a kayaker who has known Lidstone for years, wrote on Facebook. “He loves to be in nature and what you’d call a free bird... We are still planning to build or purchase a home in the spring.”
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to