If you are just hearing about “The Old Leatherman” for the first time, I would recommend exploring the Links page, but if you want the quick version, here it is:
Sometime in the late 1850’s residents of CT and Eastern NY state started to notice a mysterious wanderer making his way through their towns on a semi-regular basis. He was clad head to toe in a handmade 60 lb suit of leather. He didn’t speak much, when he did, he sounded French. He always slept outdoors in makeshift shelters, and he always kept moving. After more than twenty years of sporadic wandering, people started to notice a pattern. It was determined he was walking in a 365 mile loop, every 34 days. It was said that you could set your watch by him. He continued this solitary trek for roughly the last six years of his life, until he succumbed to cancer of the lip and jaw in 1889. He was found dead in one of his shelters, and took the secrets of his life with him.