Paul Hubbard, the hobo artist, blasted through Montreal at least twice, the first time in 1917, on a train and the next time, in 1957, in his hand-painted automobile.At every town he hit, he tried to get media attention with his fast-painting act and frequently succeeded, as there were at least 10 articles written about him.
He'd try to sell paintings of landscapes or pictures of your dog or cat for anywhere between $1 and $10.
In Montreal he told a local reporter that a hobo is a working migrant, a tramp is a non-working migrant and a bum is neither, he's just a sponge.
He said he had gone coast to coast 63 times.
Hubbard was born in Bowie, Texas in 1892, served as a private in WWI (but not that long if indeed he came through Montreal in 1917) and never married, however he traveled around with Polly Ellen Pepp, whom he called his "famous hobo-ette".
Newspapers loved reporting on Hubbard and National Geographic reportedly did at hing on him sometime in 1937 or 1938. And fittingly, when he died, he was waiting to go on a TV interview about life as a hobo.
One story he didn't tell much was quite gruesome.
He was driving around in a new station wagon which was hit by a train near Sunnyvale California in January 1947. His sister Lucia Richardson, 67, Myrtle Edmans, 64 and newphew Walter Hubbard, 20, an army corporate all died. Paul's nephew Normand survived as did Paul whose leg was amputated after the crash.
Hubbard died January 10, 1963, in LIttle Rock Arkansas.