By 
Ahead of South Shore’s 125th Anniversary, the Current is pleased to publish a special section on the community’s history.
“I like it here. I’ve got all my teeth, and I’m hardly ever sick.”
That’s how John Freund described his life in 1961, about six months before he died during a blizzard in January 1962.
Freund died as he had lived, surrounded by his beloved goats in a cave he had dug into a hillside east of South Shore.
According to a 1961 interview with the Watertown Public Opinion, it took Freund two weeks to build his dugout near the railroad tracks. Some folks remember the home having a tin exterior with barn-like doors, but all agree it lacked nearly every convenience.
The goats were Freund’s source of warmth. In fact, he received state “fuel assistance” for their food as they fulfilled this purpose.
Some of Freund’s only luxuries were chocolate syrup, which he ate with oatmeal, and Epsom salt, his medical cure-all.
Freund was born in 1884 in Waverly to Peter and Anna Katherine Heimmermann Freund. The oldest son of a farming family, he didn’t enroll in school until the age of 12. He was placed with 6-year-olds, “and I didn’t like that very well.” Although he wasn’t halfway through his first reader when he left school, he later taught himself to read and do multiplication while working for area farmers.
He later moved to Watertown in 1925 and worked at the Lincoln Hotel. In Watertown, Freund lived in an abandoned railroad boxcar. Although the boxcar was equipped with a stove, Freund reported that parts were often stolen, and he eventually learned to survive without a stove or cook his food. His cave home was built without a stove, as well.
At some point, Freund picked up raising goats as a hobby. The hills of his 15-acre plot east of South Shore lent themselves to this endeavor. At times, his herd numbered 30 goats.
Norm Kelly spent summers in South Shore with his grandparents, Frank and Lilly Hocket, and would often visit Freund. “He was never unkind,” Kelly recalled. “I enjoyed visiting with him. … He was good with us kids.”
Freund’s grave marker in St. Joseph’s Cemetery at Waverly.
Although he was a recluse, Freund is still remembered as a kind man more than 60 years after his death. Though he was eccentric and lacked formal education, he was well-read on a variety of topics and enjoyed discussing anything from “goats to Ghana.” Initially met with some hesitancy, the community of South Shore came to embrace their “goat man.”
A legend in his own lifetime, Freund lives on in local lore. His story is sometimes being mythologized, facts being obscured or exaggerated. He also lives on in poetry. The poem, “The Goat Man is Dead,” was written by his friend, Erick Jensen, shortly after his death. It reads in part:
“He died in the dark,
Alone in a cave,
But his soul is in heaven
Surely saved…
My brother
No longer you roam
Come along with us
We are taking you home.”
