The story of Jerome: The mystery that never ends
From the time he was found, legless, on a beach in Sandy Cove, Digby County, the stranger people called Jerome was a mystery. Who was he? Where did he come from? April 2022 marks 110 years since his death and still, Jerome continues to be one of the greatest enigmas in southwestern Nova Scotia.
For a man who spoke very little, others still talk about him.
There are people for whom cracking the mystery of Jerome has been a passion.
One of them is Lise Robichaud of Meteghan Centre. When she was a little girl her grandfather told her stories about how he visited Jerome.
“He was only a teenager when Jerome died. He had vivid memories of going with his family to see Jerome at the house where he lived in St. Alphonse,” she recalls. “It was sort out like a social outing. They went to church, what are we going to do now? Let’s go see Jerome.”
She also learned about Jerome in school. It wasn’t part of the curriculum, but a teacher had an interest and would talk about Jerome. Robichaud was fascinated by this mystery man.
While studying at Acadia University she wanted to do her honours thesis on a local legend. “I thought,
I’ll try to study Jerome, but I actually backed away from it because I thought it’s too big, it’s too huge. Nobody is ever going to figure out who he is,” she says.
She settled on a fellow named Cy à Mateur, who was rumoured to have sold his soul to the devil to possess magical powers. He lived during the same timeframe as Jerome, once just a few houses away from him. The more she found out about Cy, the more she learned about Jerome.
Around 2006, Robichaud was approached by Caroline-Isabelle Caron, a professor at Queens University. There was a big project underway called the Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History. Robichaud was hired to work with Caron. They were paid by the University of Victoria’s history department to research Jerome and create a website.
Their research took them to places in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
Why New Brunswick? Because Robichaud believes that’s where Jerome was before being found on the Sandy Cove beach in September 1863.
In 1859, a man was found in a logging area in Chipman, NB. His legs were frozen after falling in a lake. Later, suffering from gangrene, his legs were amputated. People surmised he was Italian because of his language.
“They nicknamed him Gamby, because he would often say the word that was Italian for leg,” Robichaud says. He was cared for in Chipman but eventually the town council decided that needed to stop. It was felt it was costing the taxpayers too much.
“They said were going to hire this boat to bring him to other shores where they can better take care of him. So this boat, these fishermen – and there’s records of this – they took him and dumped him somewhere and they left," says Robichaud.
This was in 1863.
Robichaud and Caron also found a newspaper article, one of the first written about Jerome in Nova Scotia, that referred to him by a different name with a pronunciation very similar to what the man in Chipman had once called himself.
To Robichaud, it’s the same guy. “But we don’t know where he comes from before he got to Chipman,” she says.
So why did people in Nova Scotia called him in Jerome? Because after he was discovered and asked his name, he incoherently said something that sounded like that.
“There’s an advertisement in the paper and it says come to Yarmouth to see Jerome. We don’t know if that ever happened... But the fact that they would even put that in the paper – Come see Jerome – it’s not a show.” Lise Robichaud
JEROME’S SECRETS
If people were hoping Jerome would tell them more about himself, their hopes were dashed. He spoke very little and when he did people had difficulty understanding him.
Robichaud isn’t surprised he said so little. Consider the trauma he experienced after virtually being left to die on a shoreline in Sandy Cove.
“Maybe a cold, rainy, September night. You’re left there with the highest tides in the world. Did they mean to kill him?” she says. “How can you leave a person who has no legs on that beach. It’s cruel. When that tide comes in, you’re done if you can’t move away from it.”
Jerome was brought to Meteghan and cared for in the home of a fishing captain named Jean Nicolas who was born in Corsica and spoke many languages. He stayed there until 1870. Then Jerome lived with a Comeau family in St. Alphonse until his death in April 1912.
Robichaud says there is debate over how well, or not, Jerome was cared for over the decades. Descendants of the Comeau family say he was well looked after, she says.
But Jerome sparked curiosity. Not only did people want to know who he was, they wanted to see him. Robichaud refers to a newspaper item she once stumbled across.
“There’s an advertisement in the paper and it says come to Yarmouth to see Jerome. We don’t know if that ever happened... But the fact that they would even put that in the paper – Come see Jerome – it’s not a show.”
Robichaud and Caron’s research resulted in the ‘Jerome: The Mystery Man of Baie Sainte-Marie’ section of the Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History website.
They visited archives in Halifax and in Fredericton.
“We went in person to all of the places to had something to do with Jerome. We drove to the middle of nowhere in New Brunswick to try and figure out where he had been,” she says. They conducted countless interviews. Robichaud even stood in the Gagetown home where a doctor performed the amputation on Gamby’s legs.
Although Jerome didn’t speak much, he would say the word Colombo. Was he referencing a ship? The name of a city? His name? Do answers lie in Italy?
Asked if the mystery of Jerome could ever be solved, Robichaud suggests it’s a yes and no answer.
“I wish that we could use the same technology they’re using on Oak Island. They also have a group in Annapolis Royal that maps gravesites, where you can use technology to see what’s buried underground. I know this will never happen, but the only way you could ever find the answer is you’d have to do DNA tests. You’d have to find him and dig him up.”
However, while it’s known
Jerome is buried in a Meteghan cemetery, exactly where is unknown.
The date of Jerome’s death was also difficult to pinpoint, coming at the same time the Titanic sank. With the news of that tragedy dominating the news, there was barely a news mention about Jerome’s death.
If Jerome had wanted anonymity in life, he achieved at the time of his death.
THE NEED TO KNOW MORE
Another person who can’t shake the mystery of Jerome is Fraser Mooney of Yarmouth. From the first time he heard Jerome’s story, he was hooked. His brother married a woman from St. Alphonse, so he heard about that way.
“Then Phil Comeau came out with his movie ‘The Secret of Jerome.’ It was really a big hit in the Yarmouth area. There were lineups at the old Twin Cinemas.”
Mooney went to the library to read a book about Jerome, only to discover none had been written. He decided one day to write his own.
People’s interest in Jerome remained undeniable. Whenever Mooney came across published stories he would save clippings or transcribe them. When he studied history at St. Mary’s University, he sought out any information that included references to Jerome.
“I remember speaking to a fellow from Digby Neck. I brought up Jerome. I said I think I might write a book and he said, well it’ll be a pretty short book. He didn’t think there was that much to write about because no one knew where Jerome came from, so that was the end of the story,” Mooney says.
“But that was really the beginning,” he says. “As Lise Robichaud and her colleagues found out, and as I’ve found out, there really was a lot more to the story.”
Mooney believes there remains as much interest in learning about Jerome now as well over a century ago. After all, who doesn’t like a good mystery?
“The Oak Island mystery has really taken off in the last number of years with TV shows and books,” he says. “People are really interested in these mystery stories about Nova Scotia and I’m certainly caught up in that as well.”
Asked if he shares the belief that Jerome was Gamby, Mooney does.
“The timelines of when Gamby was found in Chipman and taken in by the people of Chipman and subsequently sent away, coincides with when this fellow was found on the shoreline. It’s only a short sail across the Bay of Fundy to Nova Scotia.”
Still, that doesn’t solve the mystery. Even if Jerome was the New Brunswick guy, no one knows who the New Brunswick guy was.
Mooney admits Jerome wouldn’t be a fan of the lingering questions.
“All accounts would suggest he hated to be gawked at. He hated to be questioned and probed. He just wanted to be left alone,” he says. “I think there is something to say about respecting the privacy of an individual who was probably deeply troubled. But at the same time the story has taken on a greater life and is part of Nova Scotia’s history.”
Mooney has his own theory about why Jerome didn’t say much. He wonders if he suffered from aphasia, a condition that impacts the ability to communicate, and if this was due to a stroke triggered by the injuries to his legs.
Mooney, who published his Jerome book in 2008, says people have questioned whether DNA evidence could unlock the mystery. But the problem goes back to not knowing his exact burial spot. Besides, says Mooney, “When you talk about how Jerome was a very private person who wouldn’t want to be bothered, he would totally be opposed to being exhumed 110 years after his death.”
It’s unlikely the story of Jerome will ever go away. Aside from the movie, newspaper articles, plays, etc. of the past, more recently there have even been podcasts.
“He’s entered the social media realm beyond just the Canadian mysteries website that Lise and her colleagues developed,” says Mooney.
“He’s also taken on a 21st century social media presence.”
As for Robichaud, she hopes something that can come out of all this is dignity for Jerome.
“I’d like to be able to find out who he is and give him dignity and a voice,” she says. “I don’t think he had a lot of dignity in his life. Maybe people can have a mass said for him or give a thought to him, or even help someone disabled in his name.”
“He was a foreigner. He spoke a different language. He may have had psychological issues,” she says. “We can all be more aware of people who have issues like that.”