Creepy Victorian-Era 'Proto-Hobo' to be Dug Out of Ground

Nope, not scary at all.

This article asks, "Should the Leather Man, 19th-century proto-hobo of New York, be exhumed?" No, obviously not. Everything about that sounds bad. Why do we need a dead hobo to be dug up? What will we do with him? Not "we," per se, just in general.

The Leather Man was this guy who wandered around in Connecticut and New York during the mid- to late-1800s, just like tramping around and being a folk hero and stuff. Not that I'd heard of him before this.

122 years after his death, the Leather Man is at the center of a controversy: historians want to dig his remains up from a cemetary in Ossining, N.Y., because of the site's "dangerous proximity" to a busy road, and because they want to perform forensic tests, due to his historical significance.

Now there's this middle school science teacher dude who has started a "Leave the Leatherman Alone" campaign. The website is impressively un-amateurish! Kind of persuading me to join the 61 souls who comprise the Facebook campaign to let this hobo's skeleton stay underground.

[rgray@villagevoice.com] [@_rosiegray]