<br><div><aside class="gnt_em gnt_em__fp gnt_em_vp__tp gnt_em__el" aria-label="Video - Gender reveal explosion rocks New Hampshire towns"/><p class="gnt_ar_b_p">CANTERBURY, N.H. — For almost three decades, 81-year-old David Lidstone has lived in the woods of New Hampshire along the Merrimack River in a small cabin adorned with solar panels. He has grown his own food, cut his own firewood and tended to his pets and chickens.</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p">But his off-the-grid existence has been challenged in court by a property owner who says he’s been squatting for all those years. And to make Lidstone’s matters worse, his cabin was burned to the ground Wednesday afternoon in a blaze that is being investigated by local authorities.</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p">Lidstone, or “River Dave” as he’s known by boaters and kayakers, was jailed July 15 on a civil contempt sanction. He was told he’d be released if he agreed to leave the cabin, but he has stayed put.</p><aside aria-label="advertisement" class="gnt_m gnt_x gnt_x__lbl gnt_x__al"/><p class="gnt_ar_b_p">“You came with your guns, you arrested me, brought me in here, you’ve got all my possessions. You keep ’em,” Lidstone told a judge in a court appearance Wednesday morning. “I’ll sit here with your uniform on until I rot, sir.”</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p">Lidstone is accused of squatting for 27 years in the cabin on private property in Canterbury. The wooden, two-level A-frame cabin had a small, cluttered kitchen with pots hanging from the ceiling, some appliances, and curtains on the windows. His porch had a footstool with a base made of stacked beer cans. He converted a wood stove into a beehive. He attached lights, a mirror and a pulley for a clothesline to logs supporting the cabin. There were piles of firewood.</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p">Nearby was a gravel path...</p></div> <style> .wrapper { text-align: center; } </style> <div class="wrapper"> <a class="button" href ="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/08/05/man-forced-out-woods-after-cabin-burns-down-new-hampshire/5497498001/">Read more <span>➤</span></a> </div>
