The Old Leatherman

STRANGE, LONELY vagabond who wandered across the hills A and valleys of western Connecti- cut and eastern New York State during the latter half of the nineteenth century is probably Connecticut's single most famous legendary figure. In his time, the man known as the "Old Leatherman" was a living legend, inspiring stories and rhymes, sales of large picture post cards and an invitation (declined, of course) to become a regular exhibit in a New York City freak-show, or "museum." After his death, his memory was kept alive by both ordinary folk and a succession of imitators, who, dressed in Leatherman clothing, took to the roads of southern New England in an effort to cash in on the fame of the original. According to most accounts, the Leatherman first appeared on the country lanes of Connecticut in the years just before the Civil War. Some have even pinpointed the place and time as Harwinton, on a misty April morning in 1858. That's probably close enough. From the time of his dramatic entrance on the stage of Connecticut legend until he died in 1889, he walked a regular circuit -- always clockwise -- from the Danbury area through Watertown and Middletown, down along the Connecticut River, westward through the Connecticut coastal towns to New Caanan, then into Westchester County, New York, before circling eastward again toward Danbury to retrace his steps once more. With each circuit, he covered a distance of 360 miles or more, walking about ten miles every day.
In each community he passed through, the Leatherman had identified a home or two where he knew friendly people would provide food whenever he appeared. A "host" family became accustomed to preparing a simple meal and setting it on the back doorstep for the eccentric tramp, every thirty-four days. For no matter what the season of year or the weather conditions, the Leatherman inevitably showed up -- virtually at the same hour -- according to that precise schedule, for a period of nearly thirty years! Only in his last few years did the schedule vary and the interval between visits increase, sometimes -- as during the famous "Blizzard of '88" -- to as many as forty days. But as late as 1884-1885 he made nineteen consecutive trips of exactly thirty-four days each. It was probably inevitable that such predictable behavior would make a lasting impression on folk living in the "Land of Steady Habits."
A striking sight he must have been, too. From the floppy, peaked cap pulled down low over his piercing, grey-blue eyes to the soles of his massive boots, he was dressed in clothing made entirely of leather. His suit featured a long jacket, with cavernous pockets, assembled from square, leather patches roughly sewn together with heavy leather thongs. The pants were made of the same rude construction, and resembled the padded coverings worn by ice hockey goalies today. Some waggish observers have said that this garb was peculiarly suited to the favorite folk hero of Connecticut. Because it was made of patches, it had a kind of continuous life. It was never new, but never completely worn out, either. When one patch wore out, the Leatherman went to work with palm* and needle and replaced it with another patch.
He frequently used a long, knob-ended walking stick and always toted a two-foot-square leather bag slung over his shoulder with two leather straps. In this satchel he carried a few scraps of food, extra leather patches, a pan from which he ate, a hand-made knife and hatchet, matches, tobacco and leather-working tools. Some people say that a few leather factories on his regular route were in the habit of placing good leather pieces on their discarded scrap piles whenever the Leatherman was scheduled to pay a visit. In any case, he never seemed wanting when it came time to mend cap, suit, bag or boots. And when the hot summer sun had dried out his leather ensemble, they say the reclusive hiker could be heard creaking and cracking in the distance long before he came into view.
When the Leatherman first began his legendary rambles, he must have aroused a certain amount of apprehension in startled witnesses to his comings and goings. But it wasn't long before their fears were quieted. Never, for example, would he enter a home or barn, even to eat at a table or to escape the fiercest storm. During his long lifetime of tramping the byways of Connecticut and New York, he was never known to have paused to eat, rest or sleep under a man-made roof. He preferred, instead, the natural shelter provided by caves, mostly little more than overhanging rocks, or lean-tos made from fallen trees, branches and twigs.
To this day, the map of western Connecticut is dotted with "Leatherman's Caves," each with a tradition of having once been a temporary home for the homeless man. A few of these caves, especially those in the Meriden-Southington area and above Lake Compounce in Bristol, were known to be full of rattlesnakes. But because the Leatherman never seemed to be bothered by his venomous companions, some people believed that he possessed magical powers to charm the snakes and render them harmless.
Unlike other vagabonds who wandered the roads of New England in the nineteenth century, the old Leatherman had no interest in work or money. He never indicated a willingness to do chores for pay, like an ordinary tramp, and even though he would occasionally accept pennies offered him by children, he always returned the coins by placing them on a fence post or rock in the yard after finishing his meal. The children would then retrieve them and perhaps use them again when the Leatherman stopped the next time. He would accept gifts of food, of course, and sometimes matches or tobacco for the pipes which he left in many of the cave shelters he frequented.
In addition to his indifference to money, he had a positive passion for silence. Except for occasional noises which sounded to some like grunts and to others like phrases from a foreign language, the Leatherman never in thirty years spoke a recognizable word of English, not even a "good-bye" or "hello." He could make his wants known with a nod or a hand to his mouth, but anyone attempting to engage him in conversation or ask him a question was doomed to failure. In fact, such an effort always brought a cold reaction. One day when the Leatherman arrived at the Fenn home in Plainville, one of his regular food stops, the rap on the door was answered by Mr. Fenn, a farmer who had rarely been in the house during the wanderer's previous visits. "How are you?" asked farmer Fenn innocently. At that, the Leatherman drew back sharply, turned rapidly from the doorstep and never stopped at the Fenns' again, though he continued to pass the house for many years.
Eccentric and unconventional though his life-style was, the Leatherman's benign behavior and personal habits gradually calmed the fears and began to inspire the positive admiration of the hundreds of Connecticut people with whom he came into contact. While there were a few reported instances of harassment of the strange-looking tramp, by and large he was treated with respect by young and old alike. Once, at a tavern in Forestville, a few men grabbed him and tossed him into a horse trough in a fruitless effort to make him talk. On another occasion, in Branford, after the Leatherman had consumed a meal consisting of two cans of sardines, a loaf of bread, a pound of milk crackers, a quarter-pie, two quarts and two cups of coffee, a gill of brandy and a bottle of beer, someone, just for a joke, offered him a whole watermelon. He rose from the doorstep where he had been eating, walked off with his accustomed firm, springy step and never again stopped at that particular house. Such provocations, however, were apparently rare.
Over a period of time, the care and feeding of the Leatherman became a mark of distinction and privilege. People who lived along his route competed for the honor of providing his meals and the child who could boast that "my folks feed the Leatherman" was the envy of all his or her classmates in school. If there was an important event, such as a church social, scheduled on the day the Leatherman was due to come through, attendance was reduced because people who didn't stay home to feed the visitor might lose the honor next time around. Children, particularly, were strongly attracted to the eccentric walker and often accompanied him for short distances, he on one side of the road and they on the other.
As late as 1977 one 96-year-old Woodbridge woman who vividly recalled seeing the Leatherman when she was a child of four remembered the strong reaction of people in her neighborhood as he approached. Said Mrs. Mabel Hotchkiss Perry: "He looked strange, awful funny, but I wasn't afraid of him. Everything he wore seemed massive. He headed for the Judge house to get some food and the first thing I know, they were yelling from the kitchen, 'Here comes the Leatherman.' Then quick as lightening, three heads appeared in the doorway. Then he went back to the main road and went north toward Naugatuck."
Another elderly woman who, as a child, attended the little school on South Chippens Hill in Bristol, recalled that her teacher used the Leatherman as in incentive for the children to work for higher marks. Those achieving the best grades would be rewarded by being allowed to bring in something for the tramp on "Leatherman Day." On the inevitable day, when word was passed that the Leatherman was coming, the teacher dismissed the school and the children would line up outside. Then the child with the highest grade was permitted to step forward and offer the gift he or she had brought. The Leatherman would always come over, accept the gift without comment, nod his thanks and continue on his way. There are many who claim that in his time the old Leatherman was the best-fed, if not the most honored person in Connecticut.
The Blizzard of '88 and a case of lip cancer, probably contracted from years of over-exposure to the sun, combined to slow the Leatherman down. They say that in March of 1888 the celebrated vagrant was caught near Hartford in the worst snowstorm of the century. Found lying helpless in a snowbank, with both hands and feet frozen, he was reputedly admitted to Hartford Hospital. Here, his cancer was discovered. Despite his serious physical problems, the Leatherman soon departed the hospital in some mysterious fashion (he was supposedly under close watch) and headed once more for the open road. The blizzard and brief hospital stay caused him to be four days later than usual in making his rounds that spring.
Death, allegedly the result of injury sustained in a fall, finally slowed the old Leatherman down permanently on March 29, 1889. His body was discovered in one of his makeshift shelters near Ossining, New York, and buried without fanfare in the Sparta Cemetery in Ossining. The grave was originally marked only by an iron pipe driven into the ground, but in more recent times the site has been identified by a bronze plaque, suitably inscribed, unveiled during impressive ceremonies conducted by a group of interested citizens.
Although the secrets of the old Leatherman's origin, identity and motivation went with him to the grave, the folk imagination has worked overtime to explain them, often in fascinating (though totally unverifiable) detail. The most persistent legend goes something like this:
In the mid-nineteenth century there lived in the neighborhood of Lyons, France, a young man named Jules Bourglay (also rendered as Burgglay, Bengley, etc.), son of a woodcarver and himself an accomplished woodcarver. Since there was not a big demand for woodcarvings at the time, the family was very poor. One day Jules met and fell in love with the daughter of a prosperous Lyons leather merchant named Monsieur Laron, but because of their different stations in life, they could not be seen in public together. Their secret romance ended when Jules decided to admit his love and ask M. Laron for his daughter's hand in marriage.
As Jules expected, M. Laron first refused to permit his daughter to marry beneath her class, but the woodcarver's son was persistent and obviously intelligent -- and eventually struck a bargain with the wealthy leather merchant. M. Laron would take Jules into his firm on a one-year trial basis. If, at the end of the year, the lad proved himself a successful businessman, M. Laron would give his blessing to the marriage of Jules and his daughter. If he failed, however, the eager suitor would have to leave France and never see his sweetheart again.
For the first few months, the new leather merchant was a world-beater. As the business prospered, Jules worked his way deeper and deeper into M. Laron's confidence. Indeed, the time soon came when the wealthy merchant gave young Bourglay carte blanche to speculate with M. Laron's money in the booming Parisian leather market. Unfortunately, just about the time Jules sank a large bundle of the firm's francs into what he thought would be a sharply rising market, the bottom dropped out of leather. As leather prices fell, Jules poured more and more Laron money into the market.
Finally, with leather prices having dropped forty percent from their peak, the market completely collapsed, leaving the Laron family business bankrupt and the unfortunate Bourglay minus one fiancée. They say that the shock of losing everything affected Jules' mind. Found wandering the streets of Paris, muttering curses upon himself for bringing down the house of Laron, he was committed to a monastery for mental rest and spiritual rehabilitation. Jules Bourglay remained at the monastery for nearly a year, then disappeared, never to be seen again in France. Somehow, so the story goes, he made his way to America, determined to walk off his guilt in silent penance, the burden of that guilt symbolized by the sixty pounds of leather goods which weighted down his body. And thus was born the old -- or maybe not so old -- Leatherman.
His death did not stop nor time dim the legend of the Leatherman. In a significant way it was perpetuated, as if by general consensus, by both private and public acclaim. Although he seldom "sat" for a formal photographic portrait, many photos of the leather-clad recluse, most of them taken without his knowledge, can be found today in family albums in scores of Connecticut homes. Considering the fact that the contents of nineteenth-century albums were customarily restricted to pictures of relatives and close friends, the number of collections in which the swarthy tramp is the only exception to that rule speaks volumes about the singular place he held in the hearts of "his people." In addition, his likeness graced numerous public places: on hundreds of souvenir postcards, a few of which can still be found stuck in mirrors or tacked to the walls of taverns or barber shops in towns along his route; in a large photograph prominently hung in the Derby Public Library; and in smaller photos displayed, among other spots, in the Bristol Public Library and, before it closed, in the Honiss Oyster House in Hartford. And for many years the story of the Leatherman was required reading for students at the Danbury State Teachers College (now Western Connecticut State University), since the education of future teachers in the public schools of Connecticut was apparently considered incomplete unless it included a thorough grounding in the legendary life of the state's favorite folk hero.
In a less "official" but equally important way, the legend of the Leatherman was continued, too, in folk tradition. In fact, several new tales began circulating within weeks after news of his death reached the people who knew him. One of the most widespread beliefs held that the eccentric itinerant had somehow, during his long wandering, amassed a small fortune which now lay buried in one of his caves. But a few treasure hunters scouring various caves for the alleged cache cooled the enthusiasm of other prospective hunters when they reported that the Leatherman's shelters were protected by his ghost. The experience reported by one Clematis Sorrel a farmer, while searching the Great Saw Mill Woods cave near Shrub Oak, New York, is typical. Returning to his farm long after midnight, the treasure hunter told his family in a quavering voice that while he had been trying to find his way out of the inky cavern, a cold, clammy breeze suddenly sprang up and snuffed out his torch. Then he saw the old Leatherman. The unmistakable figure carefully lit a pile of leaves and sticks, rose slowly from his squatting position and gestured for the intruder to leave at once. He did, running at full-tilt all the way back to his farm.
Although Sorrel may have been the victim of a prankster -- Leatherman look-alikes were common on the roads of Massachusetts and Connecticut following the death of the original -- similar reports by hunters seeking the treasure in other caves favored by the Leatherman were frequent enough to fix the tale of the ghostly protector firmly in tradition. Even today, when rural folk see unexplained fires glowing at night in the Taconic Hills of New York State or among the crags of Connecticut's Litchfield Hills, they say the old Leatherman has returned to his familiar haunts, doomed forever to pace off his penance in thirty-four-day cycles.

from Legendary Connecticut by David E. Philips / ISBN 1-880684-05-5 / $17.95

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