MrRING
Android Futureman
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2002
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I hadn't heard of this story before!
https://www.canadianmysteries.ca/sites/jerome/accueil/indexen.html
https://www.canadianmysteries.ca/sites/jerome/accueil/indexen.html
In the Catholic cemetery of Meteghan, in the Municipality of Clare along St. Mary’s Bay in Nova Scotia, there lies a grave marked by a stone bearing the simple inscription, “Jerome.” Who was this Jerome? Where did he come from? For half a century the Acadians of St. Mary’s Bay asked exactly those two questions. On September 8, 1863, a stranger whose legs had been amputated above the knee was found on the beach of Sandy Cove, on the coast of the Bay of Fundy. Taken in by the local Acadians, he spent the rest of his life in almost total silence. People named him Jerome because in the midst of his grunting he is said to have uttered this name. The families that took him in received an allocation from the Nova Scotia government to provide for his needs. People came from everywhere to see the mystery man, who was put on show. By the time he died in April 1912, the legend of Jerome had only begun.
Over the decades, many people claimed to know the truth about Jerome. Most believed he was an Italian, a nobleman who had been mutilated for revenge and had shut himself away in near total silence for protection from his political enemies. Or that he was an Italian naval officer who had been injured on ship and was abandoned because he had become useless. It was often mentioned that he had apparently uttered the words “Colombo” and “Trieste,” proving that he was from Italy. But others believed that he was Jeremiah Mahony, an Irishman who had emigrated to the United States and run away from his family. Still others believed he was a poor lumberjack who had been injured in a logging accident and left to die. Jerome himself never revealed his own story.