Lifestyle

Described as mentally sound and deeply devoted to her faith, her few possessions included an old pewter basin and a gourd shell for cooking. She slept on a solid rock with scattered old rags, and when a reporter visited her in 1804, her cave had no signs of food or an active fire though she had a fireplace in the corner. She hadn't left the cave since the snowfall.^[5] Bishop claimed to consume very little meat, relying on berries, nuts, and roots gathered from the mountains during the summer. She kept a Bible with her and spent a substantial amount of time reading and meditating on it.^[5] She made a weekly journey from her cave to attend Sunday services at the South Salem Presbyterian Church, first changing into a neater attire at a local residence. Following the service, she would switch back into her worn rags and retreat to her cave.^[8]

The land around her cave was a treeless patch covered in grass, with peach trees and beans, cucumbers, potatoes, and grapevines which extended into the nearby woods. Next to the cave was a fountain with mountain water.^[5]

Appearance

According to an 1804 newspaper article, “her dress appeared little else but one confused and shapeless mass of rags, patched together without any order”. These clothes covered everything except her head, which exposed her rich long grey hair.^[5]

According to Theodore L. Van Noden, in his unpublished 1927 book of the history of South Salem, she arrived in Connecticut close to the American Revolution and was of medium height, fairly skinned, and was elegantly charming.^[8] She wore the fashionable attire of the time, donned in a petticoat and a short gown, while carrying a bundle of garments that were both expensive and rarely seen in Salem. It was clear that she had once been attractive; her manners were refined, and her conversation revealed a worldly knowledge. Yet, she remained silent about her past, providing no details about her previous residence.^[8]

According to Samuel Goodrich, in either January 1809, 1810, or 1811, "her form had become more bent, her limbs thinner and more wasted, her hair more blanched, and her eyes more colorless."^[8]

Memorials and historical analysis

Her cave in the mountains became a tourist attraction in the late nineteenth century.^[9]

Bishop was buried in an unmarked grave at June Road Cemetery in North Salem, New York.^[11] In 2000, North Salem's Town Historian, Dick Yakman, oversaw the installation of a memorial stone in June Road Cemetery. He is quoted as saying "The stone is dedicated to her memory as a compassionate woman who, with unwavering determination, faced the challenges of nature and society, living the life she chose in accordance with her convictions. May her soul be blessed by God."^[11]

According to historian Linda Grant De Pauw, the experience she endured during her capture by pirates was "so traumatic that she could not bear to return to normal human society."^[2] In 1980, Scott O'Dell, who is best known for writing Island of the Blue Dolphins which also depicts an isolated woman, wrote a historical fiction novel titled Sarah Bishop based on Bishop's life.^[12]

The poem about Bishop, titled "The Hermitess," was written by Samuel Griswold Goodrich and appeared in the Connecticut Mirror on August 25, 1823, approximately 15 years after Bishop's death. The poem reads as the following:

For many a year the mountain hag Was a theme of vilage wonder; For she lived in a cave of the dizzy craig, Where the eagle bore his plunder. Up the beetling cliff she was seen at night, Like a ghost to glide away; And she same again at the morning light, From the forest wild and grey. And when winter came with its shrieking blast, Old Sarah no more was seen, Till the snow wreath away from the mountain passed, And the forests were waving in green. Her face was wrinkl'd, but passionless seem'd As her bosom were withered and dead; And her colorless eye like an icicle gleam'd, But no sorrow nor sympathy shed. Her long snowy locks, like the winter drift, On the wind were back ward east; And her crippl'd form glided by so swift, You had said 'twere a ghost that passed. And her house was a cave in the giddy rock, That o'erhung a sullen veil; And 'twas deeply scarred by the lightning's shock And swept by the vengeful gale. As alone on the cliff she musingly sate, The fox at her fingers would snap: The raven would sit on her snow-white pate, And the rattle-snake coil in her lap; And the vulture look'd down with a welcoming eye, As he stooped in his airy swing; And the haughty eagle hovered so nigh, As to fan her long locks with his wing. But when winter rolled dark its sullen wave From the west with gusty shock—Old Sarah, deserted, crept cold to her cave, And stept without bed in her rock. No fire illum'd her dismal den: Yet a tattered Bible she red; For she saw in the dark with a wizzard ken—And talked with tire troubled dead, And 'twas said that she mutter'd a foreign name, With curses too fearful to tell; And a tale of perfidy, madness, and shame, She told to the walls of her cell. Years—years passed a way, and a stranger came To the village, with age all white—He gloomily listened to tales of the dame, And went to her desolate height. He saw her—she stood on the jutting cliff—Her hair on the wild winds breath—Yet a statue she seem'd, for her limbs were stiff, and pale in the palsy of death. Like a desolate ruin she stood on the brink, With a writhed hp and a glaring eye; And her cold clay with horror seem'd to shrink, As the stranger came shuddering nigh. He approach'd--but the hurrying gust swept on, And bore her away from his sight; And high on the craig the wild eagle alone, Attended her funeral rite.^[13][3]