Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also timber-toe) having a wooden leg.

1795		Sporting Mag. June VI 171/2: A poor beggar, of the timber-toe tribe, paid a visit to Birmingham [etc.].
1825		Morn. Chron. 11 Oct. 3/2: A squad of timber-toed Greenwich pensioners.
1838		W.N. Glascock Land Sharks and Sea Gulls II 206: ‘A man overboard!’ vociferated the timber-toed cook, stooping forward [...] his unbending wooden leg pointing straight upwards in the air.
1842		Leeds Times 26 Mar. 3/6: A timber-toed anti-teetotaller, being ‘hard-up’ and thirsting for a dram [...] pledged his leg!
1865		Belfast News Letter 25 Apr. 3/5: The tuimber-toed and mutilated ‘old salt’.
1893		Sutherland Dly Echo 14 Feb. 4/5: The timber-toed veteran was defeated.

2. (US Und.) cowardly, easily scared [? fig. use of sense 1].

1872

G.P. Burnham Memoirs of the US Secret Service viii: Weak-Kneed, or Timber-Toed; scary, cowardly; easily alarmed.