Ronald Read, a Vermont gas station attendant and janitor, who died in 2013 at the ripe old age of 92, managed to build an $8 million fortune before his passing, amassed over the years with well-chosen stock selections. “Investing and cutting wood, he was good at both of them,” said Laurie Rowell, Read’s lawyer, commenting that he read the Wall Street Journal every day.

Read was also apparently a master at keeping secrets, as his fellow Brattleboro neighbors had no idea they were living next door to a multi-millionaire. Equally floored were personnel at the local library and hospital, the unsuspecting beneficiaries of Read’s largesse.

Last week, Brooks Memorial Library and Brattleboro Memorial Hospital received enormous bequests from Read’s estate. Read left $1.2 million to the library, which was founded in 1886, and $4.8 million to the hospital, founded in 1904.

“It was a thunderbolt from the sky,” said Jerry Carbone, Brooks Memorial’s executive director.

Gina Pattison, director of development for Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, was also stunned by the news. “It’s pretty incredible. This is not something that happens on a regular basis.”

Read was known as a frugal person who kept to himself. “You’d never know the man was a millionaire,” added Rowell. “The last time he came here, he parked far away in a spot where there were no meters so he could save the coins.”

Read was the first person in his family to graduate from high school. He was instantly recognizable by his flannel jacket and baseball cap, and could often be seen collecting fallen branches for his home wood stove. He also left behind a 2007 Toyota Yaris valued at $5,000.

Read allowed himself few indulgences besides breakfast at Brattleboro’s local coffee shop, where he once tried to settle his bill only to find that someone else had already picked up the tab, assuming he did not have the means to pay.

Although Carbone was initially surprised by the bequest to Brooks Memorial, he acknowledged that it made perfect sense once he learned the backstory of the retiring, unassuming library patron.

“Being a self-made man with his investments, he recognized the transformative nature of a library, what it can do for people,” said Carbone.

In addition to the cash bequests, Read left an antique Edison phonograph with dozens of recording drums to the Dummerston Historical Society. “It really is a beautiful machine,” said Historical Society president Muriel Taylor.