“His entire clothing is leather, and he is altogether a first-class enigma.”— Litchfield [Connecticut] Enquirer, June 3, 1875 Nineteenth-century newspapers in western Connecticut and eastern New York printed countless descriptions of the eccentric vagabond who wandered their woods and villages for decades, famously clad in a rugged ensemble of leather patches sewn together. One called him an “odd-looking genius,” another a “nameless lunatic.” Yet another, deploying a term I had to look up in the dictionary, labeled the man a “strange and mysterious wight.” He was, observed one scribbler, “perennial, obstinate, yet half-revered.”
Most often, however, they simply called him “the Leather Man” (or “Leatherman,” sometimes prefacing the name with “Old”), for the cowhide couture that he fashioned from old boot tops. One scribe opined that the bulky outfit made…
