Baring–Gould’s story “Jonas Coaker” is a particularly interesting tale because it showcases the author’s fascination with his hobbies archaeology and anthropology in addition to telling the story of a living legend and fixture of Dartmoor, Jonas Coaker.  The first third of the story is devoted to Baring–Gould’s passionate descriptions of the anthropologically rich areas on Dartmoor around Post Bridge (near where Snaily House and the Warren House Inn are located).  He describes the significance of the three roads which cross this portion of the Moors, “all belonging to different epochs of civilization”.  He goes on, however, to insist that these are not nearly as interesting as the ruinous remains of the many ancient settlements which also dot this area, covering human history from recent times to before the written history of Britain:

            The earth is the great book of reference for history.  It must be turned over before history can be read.  Theories are mere air till established by the pick and shovel. Now pick and shovel have been employed on these villages of bee–hive huts, and they have revealed something quite unexpected…(140)

The rest of the story is devoted to the character of Jonas Coaker, who “had almost reached his eighty–ninth year when he died” and lived on a farm built out of one of these ancient walled villages, perpetuating the sense that he belonged to a older, legendary time(143).  Jonas is an especially apt subject because, like Baring–Gould himself, he was a jack of all trades whose biggest claim to fame was his folk ballads; Baring–Gould is also famous for his collection of West Country folk ballads, and it was his pursuit of these local lyrics that drew his attention to Coaker in the first place.  Baring-Gould describes him as a once- handsome man who, though not a very good poet, was nonetheless intelligent and remarkable for his stories.  Baring–Gould goes on to describe some of Jonas’s more intriguing exploits, including the fact that at he was at one time the landlord of the Warren [House] Inn– giving Baring–Gould the opportunity to tell the story of the Inn, some of which is detailed on the introductory page of this site.  The tale is rounded out with a gently humorous account of Jonas’s concerns about his own death and final the procession of his pall–bearers to Widecombe church, where he was buried.  It is a suitable ending for a teller and maker of Dartmoor folk history such as Jonas, who was as much a fixture as the ancient dwellings and whose death signals the end of another human epoch on the Moors.