The Hobo's Final Home

This post at Neatorama mentions a Hobo Cemetery in Britt, Iowa. The Hobo Museum has a page devoted to the yard, with a listing of those who "caught the Westbound"—useful to anyone related to Slow Motion Shorty, A Man Calld John, or Cardboard.

The Leather Man

I have a special fondness for stories of hermits and other lonely souls. The Journal News has an interesting piece about The Leather Man—a mysterious fellow clad in leather who walked a regular 365-mile circuit through Connecticut and New York for decades until his death in 1889.

His journey started sometime before the Civil War and his timing rarely varied, allowing locals to set their calendars by his arrival.

Except for some grunts and other unintelligible sounds, according to newspaper accounts, his trekking was done in silence. Legend holds that a Connecticut man once spoke to him in French, which seemed to mark the extent of any conversation.

His headstone reads "Jules Bourglay," but that name came from a 1884 newspaper article later retracted.

"I think he was a troubled man for whatever reason," said Steve Grant, a Hartford Courant reporter who spent a month in 1993 walking the Leather Man's route. "I think that has to be a given."

"But, at the same time, he clearly was a harmless person. People recognized that. When you come right down to it, in the end, we're not sure who he is." [Link]