The legless man of Sandy Cove

Every place has its own mystery stories Here’s a great one from Sandy Cove, Nova Scotia

He was found on the Bay of Fundy shores of Sandy Cove in Digby County in August of 1863 not far where we are now vacationing in 2024.

Left with a few ship’s biscuits or a loaf of bread and a jug of water by his side, he had been put-ashore from a ship. Both of his legs had been amputated above the knees and were properly bandaged.

The man who was to become known to the people of Nova Scotia by the single name of “Jerome. When he was discovered there, he had edged forward, propelled by his hands, almost to the edge of the tidewater on the Bay Shore. It was evidently his intention, fearing further horrible tricks of fate, to roll himself into the water and end a life which seemed to hold little for him but suffering.

However, he was found in time, and the carrying out of his obvious intention was thwarted. Taken to a nearby home, “Jerome” lived for about sixty years in the district, though little was ever learned about him–he never read, he never wrote, and he seldom, if ever, spoke.

It is told that the man, who was somewhere in his twenties, and an Italian, was a stowaway who was put ashore from a schooner in New Brunswick. It is believed that for a time he was employed by a lumber operator in the Chipman district in New Brunswick.

One night, in the depth of winter, possibly losing his way, the Italian was said to have fallen between the logs of a mill pond. Drenched and comfortless, he had spent the night in a saw mill, where he sought shelter–and there he slept. Sleep under such conditions was an unwise move, as his subsequent fate revealed. His legs were so terribly frozen that after he was found, the nearest surgeon found it necessary to immediately amputate both limbs well above the knee.

The local authorities faced with support of an unwelcome burden, a stranger in their midst who had no direct claim on them, chose a way to rid themselves of the man. Only a short time after he had suffered the loss of his legs, the Italian was said to have been shipped down the river to Saint John.

There, the master of a small fishing schooner was hired to dispose of the crippled man. For consideration of payment of ten dollars, the fishing skipper was to take the Italian on his boat and land him on some distant coast. He carried out his part of the bargain, and by chance, it would seem, Sandy Cove was the place.

Robert Bishop, then a Justice of the Peace at Sandy Cove, and a William Eldridge, who later moved to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, were working on a hill at Sandy Cove on a day in August 1863. They saw two of the pink-sterned schooners then prevalent in the Bay, head in to shore. One of them put off a boat and drew in but the steepness of the bank hid the boat from view as it landed. The two on the hill thought nothing special of the landing, for it was customary for boats to be sent in to secure water from a spring at that part of the coast.

Sometime later, a young man of the village came running to Bishop and Eldridge. He told them there was a man without any legs on the shore. They went down and found him. The man had been placed near the spring, with scant supplies left in the matter of food. The legless one had apparently traveled towards the shore, lifting himself with his hands in a sitting position, and proceeding with his stumps thrust forward. In this way he had almost gained what he considered the one release offered from his sufferings–death in the rushing waters of Fundy’s tide.

Questioning was almost utterly useless. When efforts were made to find something about him, and what caused his plight, he could give but the one name–“Jerome.” Asked how he had lost his legs, he had one word–“cool.” This puzzled those who questioned him for many years, until finally by chance, the whole story was bared. Then it was found that the word “cool” was not the ramblings of a mind which had at times seemed weak, if not demented. For surely it had been “cool” yes, even far more than “cool” the night Jerome slept in that isolated sawmill and was so terribly frozen about the legs that they had to be cut away.

With the hopelessly crippled man on their hands, steps were taken to care for him, and members of the Provincial Parliament of the day, saw that $2.00 a week was secured from the public funds for his keep. “Jerome,” was placed in the home of an Acadian Frenchman on the opposite side of St. Mary’s Bay.

For some sixty years, while Jerome lived on the Bay shore, the people of Nova Scotia had no inkling of the story that lay behind him. Gradually, Jerome became a part of the life of his new home district, although entering little into it.

Some years later in 1879 one Samuel Gidney of Mink Cove happened to be on a boat that harbored at Little River, Maine. In the evening, two men at that place came aboard the boat. They asked where the visiting schooner, bound for Boston, hailed from. Being informed that it came from Sandy Cove in Nova Scotia, one of the visiting pair asked if any aboard knew of a legless man being found on the Sandy Cove shore. On being told that he was still in Nova Scotia, one of them replied that he was the one who had left the cripple on the shore.

In the end, “Jerome” was fortunate in finding Nova Scotia a hospitable land, ready to provide for the care of such a waif of fate. And for many years, he lived on the shore of St. Mary’s Bay, there to end his days-and to give rise to many strange stories that have been woven about him.