ROCHESTER, N.Y. — There are so many jobs available these days, it seems employers are literally begging people to come work for them. But there was a time a long time ago when finding work wasn’t so easy. That led a whole group of people to hop trains, looking for work. 

A Rochester man is telling their stories while trying to change what he says are misperceptions of the American hobo.

Rusty rails hold the forgotten stories of a forgotten way of life. An unkind road, traveled by train, of a community living on society’s edges.

“I want them to know what a hobo is and I don’t want them to misconstrue,” said Tim Moylan. “They just were wanderers. They couldn’t settle down.”

On the subject of hobos, Moylan is sort of an expert. He knows many of the wanderers and workers. Men and women who hopped freight cars, traveling the country looking for work.

“I’m proud of all the hobos I met,” he said.

Proud of the lifelong friends he’s made, Moylan wants their stories to be told. An upstairs bedroom in his Rochester apartment is a museum, paying tribute to those friends. People with names like “Iowa Blackie” and “Grain Car George.” 

Those who lived a transient life in order to make a living.

“They were out there and they worked,” said Moylan. “They just couldn’t settle down.”

Seeing the country by rail, for many, came from necessity. After the Civil War, many soldiers hopped freight trains heading west looking for work on the American Frontier. The practice grew during the Great Depression, as people left home in search of work.

“Each photograph means something to me,” he said, pointing to the dozens of photos of hobo friends on the wall of his museum.

Moylan’s reasons for this tribute to hobos are personal. His father, he says, was a hobo for 45 years. In fact, Moylan says his dad was considered a “crown prince of hobos.”

“Connecticut Slim" — his hobo name — worked as a cook and a dishwasher.

“He said that he couldn’t settle down in one spot,” said Moylan. “But he said he was not a bum.”

That’s the misperception of hobos Moylan wants to break. He pays tribute to his dad, and others like him, though he says he only ever met his father four or five times.

“There was no hate there,” he said. “He was a wanderer. And that's what almost all your hobos are.”

Moylan didn’t follow in his father’s footsteps, though he says he hopped trains as a child to visit relatives.

“It was exciting,” he said of his train-hopping visits. “I knew where to get them because they would go real slow through the town I lived in. They go real slow and we'd jump off.”

Moylan says many of the remaining men and women who rode the rails are like family. Some actually are family.

“New York Maggie” and “Connecticut Shorty” are the hobo names of his birth sisters. Both are well-known in hobo circles. They join Moylan the second weekend of every August in Britt, Iowa. The town rolls out the red carpet for thousands of hobos and their families for an annual convention. A family which recently recognized Moylan as the annual “hobo king.”

“My dad was really well-liked amongst the hobo family,” he said. “And all these other hobos I have met, not one would have a bad word about him.”

Another reason Moylan wants to share the story of the American hobo. To set the record straight, on the forgotten who lived on society’s edges, riding the rails, living in a way most can only imagine.

“A hobo really is, and a lot of people don’t understand, he’s not a bum. Not a tramp. He’s a traveler,” he said. “And he’s willing to work.”