Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 161, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 July 1912 — Man Dies After Fifty Years’ Silence [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Man Dies After Fifty Years’ Silence

DIGBY, NOVA SCOTlA.—Within a few hundred yards of a beach where 51 years ago two fishermen-found him with his legs Amputated, “Gerome,” Nova Scotia’s man of mystery, died a few days ago, silent to the end about hiß Identity. Although he undoubtedly possessed the power of speech, “Gerome” had not conversed with anyone in the half century he had been cared for by Didier Comeau and the latter’s sons and daughters. During all of this time “Gerome" had remained a mystery to the settlers here, most of whom are known as “returned Arcadians,” being the descendants of the compatriots of Evangeline who returned to this part of their adopted country after their expulsion by the English in 1765. Away back in the summer of 1861, according to tradition, a ship different from those usually seen here put oft a small boat which made for the shore and deposited above the tide line an object that several hours later was discovered to be a man. Hlb legs had been freshly amputated and there was a jug of water and a package of ship’s .biscuit beside the paan, who had suffered greatly from exposure. Wrapped In blankets and taken to the Comeau house, where, ever since he has been a welcome member of the

household, the man was finally revived by a physician, In half a dozen languages the man was asked: “What is your name?” To this question, in Italian, propounded by the elder Comeau, the man made muttered reply: “Gerome!” Never after that, however, did “Gerome” utter a. word except on one occasion when asked where |he came from. “Trieste” was the reply made, seemingly in an unguarded moment. Physicians from all parts of the world, who have visited this Land of Evangeline in the 61 summers that have elapsed since “Gerome” was found on the beach, have studied the man's case. Most of them have agreed that he might have spoken had he decided to do so; one or two have vouchsafed the opinion that some terrible experience through which “GeromeE passed frightened him out of- his senses and rendered him unable to utter an intelligible word.