Jul 18, 2007
Window Into History
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It’s the Old Leather Man story again,
but this time with a new twist
In the midst of researching information for an upcoming book of Lewisboro ghost stories and local legends I happened to meet a fascinating gentleman, Dan W. De Luca, who has spent the last 20 years following the footsteps of the Old Leather Man
and rewriting his back story. At the risk of boring any readers who are tired of reading about one of our region’s most fascinating human conundrums, I would like to share some of Mr. De Luca’s thoughts from our meeting last May.
Jules Bourglay?
But first, a brief introduction to the Old Leather Man just in case someone has never heard about him, or missed the Leather Man columns I have done previously. For about 30 years, a swarthy gentleman clothed completely in leather, from his brimmed hat to his sabot-type wooden-soled leather shoes, completed a 365-mile circuit through Westchester and Fairfield counties every 30 days. He carried a stout walking stick and a leather bag and stopped at a number of farmhouses along his route for handouts. He never worked for his food and seldom spoke. He had many caves and rock shelters along the route (including one in Ward Pound Ridge Reservation) in which he would spend his nights. He was unique among the many tramps that were seen in the area in those pre- and post-Civil War days.
The Leather Man became a legend in his own time and farm wives and families welcomed his on-time appearance each month. In Lewisboro, he was known to stop at the Bouton homestead on Bouton Road just west of Lewisboro Elementary School and at “Harvey Mead’s place” and at the Hunt farm in Waccabuc, according to eye-witnesses quoted in an old Ridgefield Press article and Miss Louise Bouton, one of South Salem’s most famous citizens.
The Leather Man’s origins have proved impossible to pin down. Contemporary news articles hinted at a mysterious and lovelorn French past and the name Jules Bourglay was attached to him, although anyone who has tried to research this name has come up against a genealogical stone wall. When the Leather Man died in 1889, he was buried in a pauper’s grave in Sparta Cemetery in Ossining. A pipe sticking out of the grave marked the location for 64 years; in 1953, a stone was put in place and the name Jules Bourglay was inscribed on the stone.
A new twist
About 20 years ago, Dan De Luca of Meriden, Conn., was asked by his town historian to look into the legend of the Old Leather Man, a figure as familiar to that upstate Connecticut town as he is to us here in Lewisboro. Mr. De Luca was happy to oblige, but little did he know that little look into the tramp’s story would take more than 20 years of his life. For a good part of those years, Mr. De Luca was confined to bed with severe heart disease and he underwent an eventual heart transplant. During his recovery he began rebuilding his strength by transcribing hundreds of articles about his quarry. His typing was of the one-finger method and his pile of articles began in the 1860s and extended to the present. He is now in the process of compiling all the information into a book soon to be published. Mr. De Luca may be reached at his e-mail address, danwdeluca@aol.com. He now has an incredible collection of Leather Man notes and memorabilia, which he loves to talk about.
According to Mr. De Luca, the Leather Man is not Jules Bourglay. That name was first given to him in a story in the Waterbury American sometime after the Leather Man’s regular rounds were first noted and people began wondering who he was. The few who had heard him speak thought he spoke French and that led to the back story most have heard about his unrequited love for the daughter of a wealthy French leather factory owner. The news story was later recanted by the editor of the paper as pure fakery, but few paid any notice during those romantic Victorian times.
It is now Mr. De Luca’s mission to get the name of Jules Bourglay off that gravestone in the Sparta Cemetery. He doesn’t have any other name to apply in its place, just The Old Leather Man.
Mr. De Luca has determined that it is more likely that the Leather Man’s origins lie in French Canada. Perhaps he was the son of a French Canadian man and an Indian woman. The parents might have died and left him with few reasons to remain in his home village. That beginning would more easily explain the wanderer’s knowledge of rock shelter architecture and subsistence farming (small vegetable patches have been found near several of his rock shelters). It would also explain his familiarity with leather-working skills and other Indian ways, having been taught by parents and grandparents. He was an expert at living off the land, preserving fruits, nuts and berries, and a Native American origin would better fit that trait than someone who was born and bred in a French factory town who would then have had to escape to America by boat and disembark in a large American port and then have to find his way to the rural countryside!
Prior to 1883, sightings of a similar leather-clad man have been noted as far north as the Berkshires and into the Canadian border regions. If that was his home territory, Mr. De Luca’s theory makes sense. One factor that might have limited the Leather Man’s wanderings was the major rivers coming down from the north. He was never seen west of the Hudson River and seldom east of the Connecticut River. Bridges were an iffy thing, made of wood and subject to weather and rising waters, often washing away, making river crossings difficult.
A way of life emerges
In the beginning, the Leather Man didn’t ask for handouts. Then people began offering him food and trying to find out who he was. Once he was given something to eat, Mr. De Luca reckons, he would knock on the same farm house door the next time he passed through the town. Newspapers began writing about him, keeping track of his visits every time he appeared and even printing his “schedule.” By 1876, he was a legend. The more stories, the more the legend grew and as a result, the more handouts he received and the less need the Leather Man had for his little gardens for survival. In 1885, the Hartford Globe printed a major article about him that aroused even more interest and locals would swarm upon him when he arrived in a town. This probably scared him, Mr. De Luca said.
The Leather Man loved his tobacco. He would sometimes accept tobacco handouts, but not always. And he was often seen gathering discarded cigar butts and chews along the wayside. He had many pipes — he kept a pipe in almost all of his known caves and rock shelters, all almost identical! He had made a wooden mold and he would cut, bend, pound and work pieces of tin into the desire shape for the bowl.
The pipe handles were made from hollowed wood, or, in one unique instance, from an umbrella handle. Tobacco may have been his downfall since it is supposed that he died from cancer of the mouth at a relatively young age, probably about 50.
It may take a few years, but Dan W. De Luca wants this revised story of the Leather Man’s origins to replace the romantic Victorian love story that has followed the Old Leather Man for almost 140 years. Now, if each reader tells 10 other people about this French Canadian reworking of the legend, perhaps Dan will get his wish.
History mystery photo
The recent history mystery photo of a log hilltop retreat was the home of H.B. Anderson, the man who owned much of what is now Mountain Lakes Park and built the Port of Missing Men Tea House in North Salem. The house was built around the turn of the 20th Century, but was not lived in for long. Tragedy struck the family with the death of Mr. Anderson’s wife and he and his sons moved to their Long Island house. The abandoned log mansion was a favorite destination spot for many a South Salem and Waccabuc youngster and the place was finally torn down by Mr. Anderson’s son. The ruin’s remains may be seen by hikers to Lookout Point in Mountain Lakes Park, one of the most beautiful places in our town. Congratulations to Carl Madson, who guessed correctly once again.
© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
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