Two Mountain Men guys died seven years apart, and the same thing took both

History's Mountain Men has been on the air since May 2012, and in that time two of the men who lived on camera for it have died. One was a North Carolina art teacher who spent three decades helping build a wilderness camp. The other was an Ozarks blacksmith who lived in a house with no electricity. They died seven and a half years apart, and from the same illness.

Preston Roberts: Eustace Conway's right-hand man

Preston Roberts died on July 24, 2017, at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem. He was 60, and he died of complications from an inoperable liver tumor, the Journal-Patriot reported.

On the show, he was Eustace Conway's friend and frequent partner at Turtle Island Preserve, the primitive-skills camp near Deep Gap, North Carolina. Off the show, his life was bigger than his screen time:

• Turtle Island: He met Conway in 1982, helped him build the preserve and worked there for more than 30 years, eventually sitting on its board. The paper called him Conway's "right-hand man."
• The trips: He and Conway rode horses across North and South Carolina and later made a buggy trip across the country.
• The day job: He taught art in Wilkes County schools for 25 years, was twice named his school's teacher of the year and served as principal of East Wilkes High from 2007 until he retired in 2010.

He described his own career as making knives, hunting, fishing and, "from time-to-time," making television. He was survived by his wife of more than 40 years, Kathleen, and three grown children.

"The loss and sadness we feel is indescribable."

— Eustace Conway, on Preston Roberts, to the Journal-Patriot

His son Joseph Roberts went on to appear in several episodes in the seasons after his death.

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Jason Hawk: the blacksmith off the grid

Jason Hawk came to Mountain Men by a roundabout route. History first built a one-season show, No Man's Land, around his primitive lifestyle in the Arizona desert, then brought him to Mountain Men after he moved his family to the Ozarks, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported in 2016. He lived with his wife, Mary, and their young daughter, River, in a pre-Civil War wooden house in north-central Arkansas with no central heating, electricity or running water. He was also a master blacksmith who ran his own knife business, Outlaw Forge Works.

His illness became public in January 2021, when a GoFundMe for his treatment went up. It described a malignant tumor that was advanced but hadn't spread, and a plan of six weeks of intensive chemotherapy and radiation, then four to five months of stronger chemo, with surgery if the tumor shrank enough.

"My husband's diagnosis of cancer at age 45 has been a humbling experience."

— Mary Fricchione, Jason Hawk's wife, in the family's fundraiser, via Looper

The show had been the family's main income, and according to the fundraiser, his contract wasn't renewed after season 9, Looper noted in 2022. Jason Hawk died at home on January 28, 2025, surrounded by family and friends, according to the obituary signed by his wife. He was 50.

The same thing took both

Both men died of cancer. Roberts died of complications from a liver tumor at 60. Hawk fought his for about four years after the diagnosis went public.

Mountain Men sells survival against the elements: frostbite, predators, a bad winter. The two men the show lost were taken by an illness no amount of firewood fixes.

Neither was a headliner in the way Tom Oar or Marty Meierotto are. Roberts was the friend who showed up in Conway's storylines. Hawk was the Ozarks blacksmith who spent five seasons on the show. Both lived the life the show sells for real. Neither got to grow old in it: Roberts was 60, and Hawk was 50.

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