He was a survivor who had lived through 32 New England winters, living in shallow caves, not much more than rock overhangs, until his face froze during the Blizzard of ’88, causing a cancer that eventually killed him. No one knew who he was he never spoke a word. Punctual as a banker, he’d show up at the same place 34 days later, mutely asking for something to eat. The loop was said to have been 365 miles, and it took the Leather Man exactly 34 days to make a complete circuit.
On one such excursion, Roy and Sarah and another of the group stopped under a ledge, and their companion told them the story of this mysterious, silent tramp who slept in caves and walked on an unwavering course through more than 40 towns from Essex to Greenwich to Ossining, New York, to New Fairfield to Middletown and so on, the endless circle. Lifelong nature lovers, Sarah and Roy spent a lot of their weekends cave-crawling - spelunking as it came to be called.
It was in the early forties that Roy and Sarah first heard about the Leather Man. Then I’d say, ‘Gee, how do you know all this?’ and the person would say, ‘Oh, Roy Foote used to come to our town and talk about the Leather Man.’ ” “I’d be interviewing someone and it would all sound like firsthand information. And often the source of other people’s stories was Roy Foote. In his research he kept coming across Roy’s name. Ed McKeon, who wrote and produced the film, said that when he first started work on it, he had only a small file. His story was even made into a film that was shown by Connecticut Public Television. When people want to know about the Old Leather Man, they always call up Roy.” And of course, Roy has written about him countless times. In that sense it’s a story that we all share. The students at the school, generations of them, used to come here and talk to Roy, and then they’d go back and write up their term papers about the Old Leather Man. “Hundreds of people have written the Old Leather Man’s story,” Sarah Foote told me, “and not just in books and magazines. It has been written up as books, and it’s been included in countless anthologies of New England lore. In southern sections of Connecticut, the story of the Leather Man was an oft-told one.
Leaning on the walking stick he made to look just like the Leather Man’s, he’d open the door to greet surprised trick-or-treaters. On Halloween Roy used to put on the Leather Man’s suit, his shoes, and his roomy hat, which fit like an upside-down pot, and shoulder his great big leather bag. The Leather Man never spoke for himself, for the most part leaving his riddle to Roy Foote to puzzle and piece together, the way he did the Leather Man’s suit, a crazy quilt of leather scraps boldly stitched together with leather thongs. Roy even devised a suit of clothes believed to be a close replica of the Leather Man’s cumbersome and peculiar leather pants, leather jacket, leather shoes, and leather hat. He also had a large collection of memorabilia such as a tin pipe and a hatchet that belonged to the Leather Man.
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In his house, which he and his wife Sarah built on the south comer of his father’s farm, Roy Foote had accumulated closets full of information and stacks of photographs. His legend and the mysteries of his life came to mean a lifetime’s search for Roy Foote, who otherwise spent his life as a banker. The Old Leather Man was a legendary beggar who trudged a wide circle through southeastern Connecticut and western New York State during the late 19th century. A local legend like that of the Old Leather Man - Connecticut’s most famous tramp - can easily die of neglect unless someone takes an abiding interest in keeping it alive.
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