Butch Cassidy - left, and three photos of the Sundance Kid below.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Butch & Sundance - The Men & The Myth
Actually it's Harry Lonabaugh - aka the Sundance Kid (Left) and Robert Leroy Parker - aka Butch Cassidy (right)
The Sundance Kid's AC Connection
Harry Longabaugh, Will Carver, Ben Kilpatrick, Harvey Logan, Butch Cassidy.Photo Courtesy of Union Pacific Railroad Museum
The Sundance Kid & the Sting’s Atlantic City Connections
Robert Redford and Paul Newman made two memorial movies together – Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid and the Sting.
Redford played Butch Cassidy’s sidekick the Sundance Kid while Newman was Charlie Gondorf in The Sting, both historical characters with Atlantic City connections.
Gondorf, the King of the Big Con confidence men of the early part of the last century, was an Atlantic City bartender when he wasn’t playing the inside man in big time swindles as portrayed in the movie The Sting.
Then there’s the legend that Harry Longabaugh – the Sundance Kid, was from Atlantic City, which turns out to be partially true.
In the movie Butch Cassidy & Sundance Kid, there’s a scene where they get off a train in a desolate place in South America, and Butch Cassidy, whose idea it was to go there, says, “It could be worse. You get a lot more for your money in Bolivia, I know, I checked it out.”
The Sundance Kid then responds, “This might be the garden spot of the whole country. People may travel hundreds of miles just to get to this spot where we’re standing now. This might be the Atlantic City of all Bolivia for all we know.”
Cassidy says, “Look, now I know a lot more about Bolivia than you know about Atlantic City, New Jersey, I can tell you that.”
“Ah, ha! you do, huh?” says the Kid. “I was born there. I was born in New Jersey. Brought up there.”
Incredulously, Butch Cassidy looks up, “You’re from the east? I didn’t know that.”
Donna and Paul Ernst, who lived in Ocean City, NJ, saw the movie and didn’t think anything about it, but were startled when they read a National Geographic Magazine article “The Outlaw Trail,” by Robert Redford, in which he mentions that the Sundance Kid’s real name was Harry Alonzo Longabaugh. And there is a town in Wyoming near the Hole in the Wall canyon where they hung out called Atlantic City.
“Well, Longabaugh isn’t exactly Smith,” said Donna Ernest, who wrote to the magazine, whose historian sent her a detailed Longabaugh family history that showed that the Sundance Kid was the brother of Paul Ernst’s great-grandfather.
Paul then remembered his “grandpop” at a holiday dinner if the family was interested in hearing the story of his “uncle Harry, who had a sidekick, and were like Jesse James. They robbed banks and gave it to poor people, and died in South America.”
But then he said, “Na, isn’t anyone’s business, forget it.”
His grandfather repeated the story a number of times over the years, but the family just thought he was out of his head, and he was senile when he died in March, 1976.
Unfortunately, Grandpop went to his grave with the details of the story of his “Uncle Henry,” the Sundance Kid. “He never told anyone all he knew,” said Donna, “and he died in silence, taking his memories with him.”
Once intrigued however, Paul and Donna took up the trail of the outlaws and learned a lot over the following twenty years.
Harry Alonzo Longabaugh – aka the Sundance Kid, was not actually born in Atlantic City, as the movie attests, but rather in Mont Clare, on the Schuylkill Canal in Pennsylvania.
According to Donna Ernst, “Because Mont Clare, Pennsylvania is extremely small, historians thought it was actually Mont Clare, New Jersey, and that assumption eventually caused the line in the movie where Redford, as the Sundance Kid, claims he was born in Atlantic City.”
Harry – the Sundance Kid, had a brother Harvey, who did live in Atlantic City, and is credited with helping to build the first boardwalk. Since his brother had a place at the Shore, Harry frequently visited him, and thus the Atlantic City connection was firmly established.
Becoming entranced with the subject, Donna and Paul began an intense search of family history in order to learn as much about Harry Longabaugh as they could, digging through old family and official records. According to Donna, “We discovered a Conrad Longabaugh had immigrated to Philadelphia on December 24, 1772, aboard the brig Morning Star. He fought in the Revolutionary War and then raised his family in Eastern Pennsylvania. His descendants eventually settled in Mont Clare, where during the spring of 1867, Harry Alongzo Longabaugh was born.”
On August 30, 1882 the restless fourteen year old Harry left to go West with some cousins in a covered wagon, eventually settling in Cortez, Colorado, where they lived for four years. After working a cattle drive to Montana in 1886, he went to the Black Hills area, where at Sundance, Wyoming, on February 27, 1887, he allegedly stole a light grey horse, a gun and a saddle form an employee of the VVV Ranch. After being caught, the 20 year old attempted to escape by jumping off a train, but was recaptured. The local Yellowstone Journal newspaper compared him to Jesse James and attributed some other local crimes to him. In response, from the Sundance jail, he wrote a letter to the editor.
“In your issue of the 7t, I read a very sensational and partly untrue article, which places me before the public not even second to the notorious Jesse James. Admitting that I have done nothing wrong and expecting to be dealt with according to the law and not by false reports from parties who should blush with shame to make them, I ask a little of your space to set my case before the public in a true light. In the first place, I have always worked for an honest living…and was arrested…and charged with having stolen a horse at Sundance, where I was being taken by Sheriff Ryan, whom I escaped from by jumping from the cars, which I judged were running at the rate of 100 miles an hour. After this my course of outlawry commenced, and I suffered terribly for the want of food in the hope of getting back south without being detected, where I would be looked upon as I always have been, and not as a criminal. Contrary to the statement in the Journal, I deny having stolen any horses in Canada, or anyplace else, up to the time I was captured, at which time I was riding a horse which I bought and paid for. Nor had I the slightest idea of stealing any horses. I am aware that some of your readers will say my statement should be taken or what it is worth, on account of the hard name which has been forced upon me, nevertheless it is true. As for my recapture by Deputy Sheriff Davis, all I can say is that he did his work well and were it not for him ‘playing possum’ I would now be on my way south, where I had hoped to go and live a better life.” Signed Harry Lonabaugh.
When Harry Lonabaugh got out of jail the newspaper reported, “the kid has been released from Sundance,” and the Sundance Kid was born.
As Donna Ernst relates, “Stealing horses soon became robbing banks and holding up trains. Sundance and his pal Butch Cassidy were the leaders of a loose-knit group of thieves better known as the Wild Bunch. And together these men were so skilled at escaping the law that the American Bankers Association and the Union Pacific Railroad hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency to capture them – at any cost.”
In the course of their two decades long quest to learn as much as possible about their renegade relation, Donna and Paul spent their summer vacations traveling the West’s “Outlaw Trails,” where they visited banks their great-uncle once robbed and the cabins in the mountains where they hid out from the law.
They also found another Atlantic City connection – Atlantic City, Wyoming, one of the ghost towns near Hole-in-the-Wall Wyoming.
They trailed the Wild Bunch to Fort Worth, Texas, where the gang regrouped and had the famous photograph taken. “Sundance and Butch saw their way of life changing before their eyes,” Donna relates. “Their fellow outlaws were all being killed or caught and jailed. It was time to move on, to take a trip to South America, and to start a new life. So the Wild Bunch met in Fort Worth for a good-bye celebration. One of the things they did was have their picture taken together, but unknown to them, the photographer placed the picture on display in his window, where it was seen by a Wells Fargo detective who recognized one of the men.”
With the heat hot on their tail, says Donna, “the Sundance Kid returned home with his wife, Ethel Place, to see his family, brother Harvey and his sisters Samanna and Emma, and meet his nieces and nephews, some born in his absence. Then he explained his decision to move to South America and told his family he was going to settle down, buy a ranch and go straight.”
According to the reports of the Pinkerton Detectives who were after him, Sundance and Ethel were seen “frolicking” at the beach in Atlantic City, where the Sundance Kid’s brother Harvey lived at the time. “We suspect they visited Harvey’s family at the beach,” says Donna, “and at that time Grandpop was about eleven years old.”
According to the legend, and the movie, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid fled to South America and were the two American bandits killed in a shootout in San Vicente, Bolivia on November 8, 1908.
But Lula Parker Betenson, Butch Cassidy’s sister, wrote a book Butch Cassidy, My Brother (Bringham Young Press, 1975) in which she claims her brother returned home years after he was reported killed in South America, and told the family that he last saw the Sundance Kid and Ethel Place at a bullfight in Mexico City.
In 1991, research historian Dan Buck and Anthropologist Dr. Clyde Snow exhumed the bodies of the “bandito Yankees,” killed an buried in San Vicente, Bolivia, and conducted DNA tests to match genetic material with descendants of Cassidy and Longabaugh. The negative results left the case open to historical debate as to whether Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were killed in South America or merely encouraged the rumors of their death in order to get the Pinkertons off their trail and to start a new life outside of crime.
As a result of their research and travels, Donna Ernst wrote a book, Sundance – My Uncle (Creative Publishing Co, Box 9292, College Station, Tx., 77842, 1992), which chronicles the full story of Harry Alonzo Longabaugh, at least what could be learned today.
At a meeting of Western Outlaw-Lawmen History Association, Donna Ernst said, “While I am not a professional writer, I don’t mind doing a lot of research. I have mixed my desire for accuracy and my access to private family information together with the historical details of Sundance’s life. In the process I have found some new information, and have tried to correct a few inaccuracies.”
Next: CHARLIE GONDORF – THE STING’S ATLANTIC CITY CONNCTION
The Day the Governor Closed Atlantic City
THE DAY THE GOVERNOR CLOSED ATLANTIC CITY
By William Kelly (billkelly3@gmail.com)
When Governor Chris Christie signed legislation that gives the State of New Jersey unprecedented powers in Atlantic City, virtually taking over parts of the town, it wasn’t the first time a governor was at odds with the way the city operated.
In 1908 Governor Franklin Fort sent the Attorney General to town to see that the Sunday blue laws were enforced, and when he couldn’t do it, Fort threatened to in send the state militia to straighten things out.
Atlantic City was always known as a wide open town, not only for free enterprise to anyone who wanted to do business, but for anyone who wanted a drink, to gamble or get a call girl, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It was a barrier island unto itself, ruled by the political bosses who lived there.
In his book Boardwalk Empire, Judge Nelson Johnson writes, “The prevalence of gambling, prostitution, and unlawful sales of liquor were admitted to openly by local officials. Hundreds of local families relied on illegal sources of income and as long as the visitors were happy, no one interfered. This brazen violation of the law created a furor in the newspapers nearly every summer. In time, resort businessmen and politicians built up immunity to the newspaper criticisms. They learned that being so remote geographically had its advantages. Resort politicians knew best how to deal with such complaints – ignore them.”
Atlantic City even carried on business as usual on Sundays, in contrivance of New Jersey State law, and much to the chagrin of the governor John Franklin Fort, who won election in 1807 based in part on a platform promising to clean up Atlantic City. As Nelson Johnson writes, “Governor Fort declared war on Atlantic City. In July, 1908 he vowed to clean up the town, appointed a special commission to investigate the resort’s illegal activities and demanded to know why the prosecutor refused to file complaints against the saloon keepers, gambling room operators, and madams.”
Fort read the newspaper reports of the debauchery in Atlantic City, and promised to put an end to it, but once he got into office found that he could do little about it. When the Attorney General got to Atlantic City to enforce the laws, he found that when violators were brought before a grand jury, the juries refused to indict.
The grand juries, it turned out, were handpicked by the county sheriff, Smith Johnson, Enoch “Nucky” Johnson’s father. “Sheriff Johnson understood the legal system and knew how to protect Atlantic City’s businessmen,” explains Nelson Johnson. “He controlled the selection of the grand jury and saw to it that everyone chosen to serve was ‘safe.’ He even chose jurors who were tavern owners themselves or local businessmen who benefited from vice.”
When asked why he made no arrests, Sheriff Johnson told Governor Fort that he had enough to do already and wasn’t going to “go looking for trouble.”
While Fort couldn’t change the morals and manners of the city, he could enforce state law, and was hell bent on enforcing the law that forbade the sale of liquor on Sunday. It was quite clear that the hotels, bars and restaurants in Atlantic City flagrantly ignored the state law that banned the sale of alcohol on Sunday, and Fort was determined to see that the law was enforced. After he issued an official proclamation that was ignored, Fort threatened to call out the National Guard, invade Atlantic City and shut down the illegal operations.
“Threat of Militia for Atlantic City” read the headline in the New York Times on Aug. 28, 1908, “ Gov. Fort makes Sensational Attack on Sunday Law Violators at That Resort. Officials Are Traitors.” The Times ran sensational stories written without a byline, apparently to protect the reporters from retribution. One such article explained, “Gov. Fort of New Jersey issued a proclamation to the people of the State on the non-enforcement in Atlantic City of the Bishops’ law for-bidding the sale of liquor on Sunday. In it he declares that if the resort is open on Sunday next he will authorize the courts to remove all officials who willfully refuse to do their duty.”
Simultaneously with “this sensational declaration of the Governor, the Grand Jury was discharged after reporting that they had found no indictments for violations of the excise law.”
While he was on vacation at Sea Girt, Fort issued a statement that built up suspense, saying, “No one questioned the fact that street walking, gambling, houses of ill-fame, people of ill-repute, obscene pictures, and open violations of the excise laws exist in Atlantic City. The Police know it or could find out if they wanted to, but they refused to do anything to better conditions. In fact, in respect to the Sunday law enforcement, they not only refused, but have admitted that they were aiding the nullification of these laws.”
“The conditions amount to a combination of officials and influential citizens to subvert the State laws – in a word, treason against the State,” said Fort, who wrote a letter to the Sheriff Smith E. Johnson to say: “Your ideas of the duties of the Sheriff of a county are most surprising. The Sheriff not only has the power to detect and suppress vice, but it is his duty to do so. He should not wait until some one tells of a criminal act and of a violation of the law, but he should seek out offenders and suppress their practices. You seem to think that all you need to do is to hide behind the fact that no one makes a complaint. If this satisfies your conscience it does not satisfy the law. You are entitled to the support of the State giving you its entire citizen soldiery to assist you.”
To Mayor F. P. Story, Fort wrote: “It is quiet apparent you know all about conditions in your city, not only with regard to Sunday violations, but the much worse violations of the law in the form of gambling and vice and crimes of an unmentionable character. If you do not know, then you do not care to know. You admit that the police are under your control; that they would, if you gave the order, close these places, and yet you do not give that order. It cannot be that you are not interested in Atlantic City. It is the great ocean resort of our state, attractive in every way. Its future is promising in a remarkable degree, and if present conditions are allowed to continue and the character of vice and crime that are exists is permitted to flourish, people of repute will refuse to go there.”
“If you cannot enforce all laws in Atlantic City, I will enforce the laws in Atlantic City as the Governor of the State. There will be no difficulty to do it. The criminal will run away from the law every time when he understands that the law is to be enforced. You have occupied the office of Mayor for many years. You owe the people of that city something, and I appeal to you to enforce the law or request that the State shall do it.”
Somers Point was also found to be open. This was the home of Judge Enoch Higbee, the Judge of the County Court, who said he stood ready to enforce the law.
The Governor said, “Two methods suggest themselves as a remedy when the officials refuse and the courts of law are powerless to punish the wrongdoers. First – Call out the militia and police the city with soldiers and close up the illegal places by the military arm of the State. This amounts to declaring martial law. Second – call the Legislature to enact legislation to place the drawing of all juries in the hands of an independent commission, that fair men may be selected for this duty; and to authorize the courts to remove officials who willfully and perversely refuse to do their duty.”
The local officials were under the direction of “Commodore” Louis Kuehnle, Atlantic City’s first political boss, and Kuehnle, Sheriff Johnson and Judge Higbee decided to give in and enforce the State Sunday blue law.
The Times reported, “Gov. Fort has won his fight for Sunday closings in Atlantic City without resorting to the troops. Atlantic City will be closed as tight as a drum on Sunday next. Instead of State guardsmen behind the bars of every licensed establishment, policemen, who for years have winked at open side doors, will arrest every license holder who dares to defy the Bishops’ law. The decision was reached late this afternoon when County Judge Enoch A. Higbee, long reported as a component part of the country political machine, issued a friendly warning to his friends – the hotel men of Atlantic City.”
Unlike today, where Republican Governor Christie is seen as a foreign interloper by the Democrats in the mayor’s office, they were all Republicans then. Both Governor Forte and the local political machine were Republicans, and the issue was seen as possibly hurting the image of the party. As they speculated in the newspapers, “That the effect of Gov. Fort’s threat to call out the militia to subdue the defiant saloonkeepers of Atlantic County will probably be to make some thousands of indifferent men of New Jersey vote the Democratic ticket in November. The experience of many years has shown that when the liquor issue came before the people at election the liquor men have won.”
The day finally arrived, and Atlantic City survived. A bulletin posted to-day in Police Headquarters read: “Bulletin – Saloons all closed. No troops in town.” The Chief of Police was quoted as saying, “I don’t believe any town ever was or ever will be more completely closed so far as the enforcement of the Sunday selling law is concerned.”
Bartenders had a complete holiday. As the Times reported, it was, “the first Sunday off for many a moon, and some of them said it was the first time they had been able to see what the Boardwalk crowds really looked like on the day of rest.” Some thought the closings would keep many persons away form the resort, but they were mistaken, as the crowds were unusually large. But with Atlantic City closed, some were thirsty enough to jump on the trolley to Ocean City and got off in Somers Point, where they expected the bars to be open, as they always were in Judge Higbee’s hometown.
Two years earlier when Atlantic City closed Somers Point did a big business. Trolleys carried thousands there for a dime, and the taverns in the town took in profits enough in twelve hours to pay rent and other expenses for a year. This time however, as Times noted, “Hundreds of thirsty tourist, who, failing to obtain the refreshments, hastened to Somers Point by trolley with the assurance that there would be no difficulty in getting anything a dry palate might crave in the bay resort, fourteen miles from the city. They returned in dejection with the tidings that Somers Point was also dry.”
At the end of the day, they tabulated up the money not earned and it was reported, “A spokesman for the affected liquor interests, and one of the local political leaders, declared that the loss of to-day’s closings would amount approximately to $150,000.”
The closing of the city on Sundays brought many citizens up at arms, and they called for an emergency meeting to determine who was going to lead the city. One report said, “Citizens of all parties and all factions will meet to voice a demand for a new rule for the city. The saloon and hotel interests believe the policy of the Kuehnle administration is to blame for the emergency.”
Despite all the rhetoric and mass meetings demanding change and new leadership, Commodore Kuehnle maintained his power until 1911 when justice finally caught up with him, and his mentor, Enoch “Nucky’ Johnson, the son of Sheriff Sam Johnson took over. Nucky would maintain his reign for thirty years, until he too went to jail in August, 1941. The day before he surrendered to serve his sentence, Nucky threw a party and married his long time girlfriend, showgirl Florence “Flossie” Osbeck.
When he got out of jail four years later, Nucky Johnson became just an ordinary citizen of Atlantic City, the guy who once owned the town, was just another guy walking down the boardwalk. The new boss, Francis Sherman “Hap” Farley inherited the political machine that Commodore Kuehnle and Nucky Johnson had assembled and he enhanced it further, maintaining his rule until 1971 when he finally lost an election.
So for the better part of a century, Atlantic City was run by three men – Commodore K, Nucky Johnson and Hap Farley, and in some ways, they were more powerful than the governor, as the city remained open for business on Sundays.
By William Kelly (billkelly3@gmail.com)
When Governor Chris Christie signed legislation that gives the State of New Jersey unprecedented powers in Atlantic City, virtually taking over parts of the town, it wasn’t the first time a governor was at odds with the way the city operated.
In 1908 Governor Franklin Fort sent the Attorney General to town to see that the Sunday blue laws were enforced, and when he couldn’t do it, Fort threatened to in send the state militia to straighten things out.
Atlantic City was always known as a wide open town, not only for free enterprise to anyone who wanted to do business, but for anyone who wanted a drink, to gamble or get a call girl, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It was a barrier island unto itself, ruled by the political bosses who lived there.
In his book Boardwalk Empire, Judge Nelson Johnson writes, “The prevalence of gambling, prostitution, and unlawful sales of liquor were admitted to openly by local officials. Hundreds of local families relied on illegal sources of income and as long as the visitors were happy, no one interfered. This brazen violation of the law created a furor in the newspapers nearly every summer. In time, resort businessmen and politicians built up immunity to the newspaper criticisms. They learned that being so remote geographically had its advantages. Resort politicians knew best how to deal with such complaints – ignore them.”
Atlantic City even carried on business as usual on Sundays, in contrivance of New Jersey State law, and much to the chagrin of the governor John Franklin Fort, who won election in 1807 based in part on a platform promising to clean up Atlantic City. As Nelson Johnson writes, “Governor Fort declared war on Atlantic City. In July, 1908 he vowed to clean up the town, appointed a special commission to investigate the resort’s illegal activities and demanded to know why the prosecutor refused to file complaints against the saloon keepers, gambling room operators, and madams.”
Fort read the newspaper reports of the debauchery in Atlantic City, and promised to put an end to it, but once he got into office found that he could do little about it. When the Attorney General got to Atlantic City to enforce the laws, he found that when violators were brought before a grand jury, the juries refused to indict.
The grand juries, it turned out, were handpicked by the county sheriff, Smith Johnson, Enoch “Nucky” Johnson’s father. “Sheriff Johnson understood the legal system and knew how to protect Atlantic City’s businessmen,” explains Nelson Johnson. “He controlled the selection of the grand jury and saw to it that everyone chosen to serve was ‘safe.’ He even chose jurors who were tavern owners themselves or local businessmen who benefited from vice.”
When asked why he made no arrests, Sheriff Johnson told Governor Fort that he had enough to do already and wasn’t going to “go looking for trouble.”
While Fort couldn’t change the morals and manners of the city, he could enforce state law, and was hell bent on enforcing the law that forbade the sale of liquor on Sunday. It was quite clear that the hotels, bars and restaurants in Atlantic City flagrantly ignored the state law that banned the sale of alcohol on Sunday, and Fort was determined to see that the law was enforced. After he issued an official proclamation that was ignored, Fort threatened to call out the National Guard, invade Atlantic City and shut down the illegal operations.
“Threat of Militia for Atlantic City” read the headline in the New York Times on Aug. 28, 1908, “ Gov. Fort makes Sensational Attack on Sunday Law Violators at That Resort. Officials Are Traitors.” The Times ran sensational stories written without a byline, apparently to protect the reporters from retribution. One such article explained, “Gov. Fort of New Jersey issued a proclamation to the people of the State on the non-enforcement in Atlantic City of the Bishops’ law for-bidding the sale of liquor on Sunday. In it he declares that if the resort is open on Sunday next he will authorize the courts to remove all officials who willfully refuse to do their duty.”
Simultaneously with “this sensational declaration of the Governor, the Grand Jury was discharged after reporting that they had found no indictments for violations of the excise law.”
While he was on vacation at Sea Girt, Fort issued a statement that built up suspense, saying, “No one questioned the fact that street walking, gambling, houses of ill-fame, people of ill-repute, obscene pictures, and open violations of the excise laws exist in Atlantic City. The Police know it or could find out if they wanted to, but they refused to do anything to better conditions. In fact, in respect to the Sunday law enforcement, they not only refused, but have admitted that they were aiding the nullification of these laws.”
“The conditions amount to a combination of officials and influential citizens to subvert the State laws – in a word, treason against the State,” said Fort, who wrote a letter to the Sheriff Smith E. Johnson to say: “Your ideas of the duties of the Sheriff of a county are most surprising. The Sheriff not only has the power to detect and suppress vice, but it is his duty to do so. He should not wait until some one tells of a criminal act and of a violation of the law, but he should seek out offenders and suppress their practices. You seem to think that all you need to do is to hide behind the fact that no one makes a complaint. If this satisfies your conscience it does not satisfy the law. You are entitled to the support of the State giving you its entire citizen soldiery to assist you.”
To Mayor F. P. Story, Fort wrote: “It is quiet apparent you know all about conditions in your city, not only with regard to Sunday violations, but the much worse violations of the law in the form of gambling and vice and crimes of an unmentionable character. If you do not know, then you do not care to know. You admit that the police are under your control; that they would, if you gave the order, close these places, and yet you do not give that order. It cannot be that you are not interested in Atlantic City. It is the great ocean resort of our state, attractive in every way. Its future is promising in a remarkable degree, and if present conditions are allowed to continue and the character of vice and crime that are exists is permitted to flourish, people of repute will refuse to go there.”
“If you cannot enforce all laws in Atlantic City, I will enforce the laws in Atlantic City as the Governor of the State. There will be no difficulty to do it. The criminal will run away from the law every time when he understands that the law is to be enforced. You have occupied the office of Mayor for many years. You owe the people of that city something, and I appeal to you to enforce the law or request that the State shall do it.”
Somers Point was also found to be open. This was the home of Judge Enoch Higbee, the Judge of the County Court, who said he stood ready to enforce the law.
The Governor said, “Two methods suggest themselves as a remedy when the officials refuse and the courts of law are powerless to punish the wrongdoers. First – Call out the militia and police the city with soldiers and close up the illegal places by the military arm of the State. This amounts to declaring martial law. Second – call the Legislature to enact legislation to place the drawing of all juries in the hands of an independent commission, that fair men may be selected for this duty; and to authorize the courts to remove officials who willfully and perversely refuse to do their duty.”
The local officials were under the direction of “Commodore” Louis Kuehnle, Atlantic City’s first political boss, and Kuehnle, Sheriff Johnson and Judge Higbee decided to give in and enforce the State Sunday blue law.
The Times reported, “Gov. Fort has won his fight for Sunday closings in Atlantic City without resorting to the troops. Atlantic City will be closed as tight as a drum on Sunday next. Instead of State guardsmen behind the bars of every licensed establishment, policemen, who for years have winked at open side doors, will arrest every license holder who dares to defy the Bishops’ law. The decision was reached late this afternoon when County Judge Enoch A. Higbee, long reported as a component part of the country political machine, issued a friendly warning to his friends – the hotel men of Atlantic City.”
Unlike today, where Republican Governor Christie is seen as a foreign interloper by the Democrats in the mayor’s office, they were all Republicans then. Both Governor Forte and the local political machine were Republicans, and the issue was seen as possibly hurting the image of the party. As they speculated in the newspapers, “That the effect of Gov. Fort’s threat to call out the militia to subdue the defiant saloonkeepers of Atlantic County will probably be to make some thousands of indifferent men of New Jersey vote the Democratic ticket in November. The experience of many years has shown that when the liquor issue came before the people at election the liquor men have won.”
The day finally arrived, and Atlantic City survived. A bulletin posted to-day in Police Headquarters read: “Bulletin – Saloons all closed. No troops in town.” The Chief of Police was quoted as saying, “I don’t believe any town ever was or ever will be more completely closed so far as the enforcement of the Sunday selling law is concerned.”
Bartenders had a complete holiday. As the Times reported, it was, “the first Sunday off for many a moon, and some of them said it was the first time they had been able to see what the Boardwalk crowds really looked like on the day of rest.” Some thought the closings would keep many persons away form the resort, but they were mistaken, as the crowds were unusually large. But with Atlantic City closed, some were thirsty enough to jump on the trolley to Ocean City and got off in Somers Point, where they expected the bars to be open, as they always were in Judge Higbee’s hometown.
Two years earlier when Atlantic City closed Somers Point did a big business. Trolleys carried thousands there for a dime, and the taverns in the town took in profits enough in twelve hours to pay rent and other expenses for a year. This time however, as Times noted, “Hundreds of thirsty tourist, who, failing to obtain the refreshments, hastened to Somers Point by trolley with the assurance that there would be no difficulty in getting anything a dry palate might crave in the bay resort, fourteen miles from the city. They returned in dejection with the tidings that Somers Point was also dry.”
At the end of the day, they tabulated up the money not earned and it was reported, “A spokesman for the affected liquor interests, and one of the local political leaders, declared that the loss of to-day’s closings would amount approximately to $150,000.”
The closing of the city on Sundays brought many citizens up at arms, and they called for an emergency meeting to determine who was going to lead the city. One report said, “Citizens of all parties and all factions will meet to voice a demand for a new rule for the city. The saloon and hotel interests believe the policy of the Kuehnle administration is to blame for the emergency.”
Despite all the rhetoric and mass meetings demanding change and new leadership, Commodore Kuehnle maintained his power until 1911 when justice finally caught up with him, and his mentor, Enoch “Nucky’ Johnson, the son of Sheriff Sam Johnson took over. Nucky would maintain his reign for thirty years, until he too went to jail in August, 1941. The day before he surrendered to serve his sentence, Nucky threw a party and married his long time girlfriend, showgirl Florence “Flossie” Osbeck.
When he got out of jail four years later, Nucky Johnson became just an ordinary citizen of Atlantic City, the guy who once owned the town, was just another guy walking down the boardwalk. The new boss, Francis Sherman “Hap” Farley inherited the political machine that Commodore Kuehnle and Nucky Johnson had assembled and he enhanced it further, maintaining his rule until 1971 when he finally lost an election.
So for the better part of a century, Atlantic City was run by three men – Commodore K, Nucky Johnson and Hap Farley, and in some ways, they were more powerful than the governor, as the city remained open for business on Sundays.
The Sundance Kid's AC Connections
The Sundance Kid & the Sting’s Atlantic City Connections
Robert Redford and Paul Newman made two memorial movies together – Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid and the Sting.
Redford played Butch Cassidy’s sidekick the Sundance Kid while Newman was Charlie Gondorf in The Sting, both historical characters with Atlantic City connections.
Gondorf, the King of the Big Con confidence men of the early part of the last century, was an Atlantic City bartender when he wasn’t playing the inside man in big time swindles as portrayed in the movie The Sting.
Then there’s the legend that Harry Longabaugh – the Sundance Kid, was from Atlantic City, which turns out to be partially true.
In the movie Butch Cassidy & Sundance Kid, there’s a scene where they get off a train in a desolate place in South America, and Butch Cassidy, whose idea it was to go there, says, “It could be worse. You get a lot more for your money in Bolivia, I know, I checked it out.”
The Sundance Kid then responds, “This might be the garden spot of the whole country. People may travel hundreds of miles just to get to this spot where we’re standing now. This might be the Atlantic City of all Bolivia for all we know.”
Cassidy says, “Look, now I know a lot more about Bolivia than you know about Atlantic City, New Jersey, I can tell you that.”
“Ah, ha! you do, huh?” says the Kid. “I was born there. I was born in New Jersey. Brought up there.”
Incredulously, Butch Cassidy looks up, “You’re from the east? I didn’t know that.”
Donna and Paul Ernst, who lived in Ocean City, NJ, saw the movie and didn’t think anything about it, but were startled when they read a National Geographic Magazine article “The Outlaw Trail,” by Robert Redford, in which he mentions that the Sundance Kid’s real name was Harry Alonzo Longabaugh. And there is a town in Wyoming near the Hole in the Wall canyon where they hung out called Atlantic City.
“Well, Longabaugh isn’t exactly Smith,” said Donna Ernest, who wrote to the magazine, whose historian sent her a detailed Longabaugh family history that showed that the Sundance Kid was the brother of Paul Ernst’s great-grandfather.
Paul then remembered his “grandpop” at a holiday dinner if the family was interested in hearing the story of his “uncle Harry, who had a sidekick, and were like Jesse James. They robbed banks and gave it to poor people, and died in South America.”
But then he said, “Na, isn’t anyone’s business, forget it.”
His grandfather repeated the story a number of times over the years, but the family just thought he was out of his head, and he was senile when he died in March, 1976.
Unfortunately, Grandpop went to his grave with the details of the story of his “Uncle Henry,” the Sundance Kid. “He never told anyone all he knew,” said Donna, “and he died in silence, taking his memories with him.”
Once intrigued however, Paul and Donna took up the trail of the outlaws and learned a lot over the following twenty years.
Harry Alonzo Longabaugh – aka the Sundance Kid, was not actually born in Atlantic City, as the movie attests, but rather in Mont Clare, on the Schuylkill Canal in Pennsylvania.
According to Donna Ernst, “Because Mont Clare, Pennsylvania is extremely small, historians thought it was actually Mont Clare, New Jersey, and that assumption eventually caused the line in the movie where Redford, as the Sundance Kid, claims he was born in Atlantic City.”
Harry – the Sundance Kid, had a brother Harvey, who did live in Atlantic City, and is credited with helping to build the first boardwalk. Since his brother had a place at the Shore, Harry frequently visited him, and thus the Atlantic City connection was firmly established.
Becoming entranced with the subject, Donna and Paul began an intense search of family history in order to learn as much about Harry Longabaugh as they could, digging through old family and official records. According to Donna, “We discovered a Conrad Longabaugh had immigrated to Philadelphia on December 24, 1772, aboard the brig Morning Star. He fought in the Revolutionary War and then raised his family in Eastern Pennsylvania. His descendants eventually settled in Mont Clare, where during the spring of 1867, Harry Alongzo Longabaugh was born.”
On August 30, 1882 the restless fourteen year old Harry left to go West with some cousins in a covered wagon, eventually settling in Cortez, Colorado, where they lived for four years. After working a cattle drive to Montana in 1886, he went to the Black Hills area, where at Sundance, Wyoming, on February 27, 1887, he allegedly stole a light grey horse, a gun and a saddle form an employee of the VVV Ranch. After being caught, the 20 year old attempted to escape by jumping off a train, but was recaptured. The local Yellowstone Journal newspaper compared him to Jesse James and attributed some other local crimes to him. In response, from the Sundance jail, he wrote a letter to the editor.
“In your issue of the 7th, I read a very sensational and partly untrue article, which places me before the public not even second to the notorious Jesse James. Admitting that I have done nothing wrong and expecting to be dealt with according to the law and not by false reports from parties who should blush with shame to make them, I ask a little of your space to set my case before the public in a true light. In the first place, I have always worked for an honest living…and was arrested…and charged with having stolen a horse at Sundance, where I was being taken by Sheriff Ryan, whom I escaped from by jumping from the cars, which I judged were running at the rate of 100 miles an hour. After this my course of outlawry commenced, and I suffered terribly for the want of food in the hope of getting back south without being detected, where I would be looked upon as I always have been, and not as a criminal. Contrary to the statement in the Journal, I deny having stolen any horses in Canada, or anyplace else, up to the time I was captured, at which time I was riding a horse which I bought and paid for. Nor had I the slightest idea of stealing any horses. I am aware that some of your readers will say my statement should be taken or what it is worth, on account of the hard name which has been forced upon me, nevertheless it is true. As for my recapture by Deputy Sheriff Davis, all I can say is that he did his work well and were it not for him ‘playing possum’ I would now be on my way south, where I had hoped to go and live a better life.” Signed Harry Lonabaugh.
When Harry Lonabaugh got out of jail the newspaper reported, “the kid has been released from Sundance,” and the Sundance Kid was born.
As Donna Ernst relates, “Stealing horses soon became robbing banks and holding up trains. Sundance and his pal Butch Cassidy were the leaders of a loose-knit group of thieves better known as the Wild Bunch. And together these men were so skilled at escaping the law that the American Bankers Association and the Union Pacific Railroad hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency to capture them – at any cost.”
There's no evidence, despite his reputation as a gunfighter, that the Sundance Kid ever shot or killed anyone.
In the course of their two decades long quest to learn as much as possible about their renegade relation, Donna and Paul spent their summer vacations traveling the West’s “Outlaw Trails,” where they visited banks their great-uncle once robbed and the cabins in the mountains where they hid out from the law.
They also found another Atlantic City connection – Atlantic City, Wyoming, one of the ghost towns near Hole-in-the-Wall Wyoming.
They trailed the Wild Bunch to Fort Worth, Texas, where the gang regrouped and had the famous photograph taken. “Sundance and Butch saw their way of life changing before their eyes,” Donna relates. “Their fellow outlaws were all being killed or caught and jailed. It was time to move on, to take a trip to South America, and to start a new life. So the Wild Bunch met in Fort Worth for a good-bye celebration. One of the things they did was have their picture taken together, but unknown to them, the photographer placed the picture on display in his window, where it was seen by a Wells Fargo detective who recognized one of the men.”
With the heat hot on their tail, says Donna, “the Sundance Kid returned home with his wife, Ethel Place, to see his family, brother Harvey and his sisters Samanna and Emma, and meet his nieces and nephews, some born in his absence. Then he explained his decision to move to South America and told his family he was going to settle down, buy a ranch and go straight.”
According to the reports of the Pinkerton Detectives who were after him, Sundance and Ethel were seen “frolicking” at the beach in Atlantic City, where the Sundance Kid’s brother Harvey lived at the time. “We suspect they visited Harvey’s family at the beach,” says Donna, “and at that time Grandpop was about eleven years old.”
According to the legend, and the movie, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid fled to South America and were the two American bandits killed in a shootout in San Vicente, Bolivia on November 8, 1908.
But Lula Parker Betenson, Butch Cassidy’s sister, wrote a book Butch Cassidy, My Brother (Bringham Young Press, 1975) in which she claims her brother returned home years after he was reported killed in South America, and told the family that he last saw the Sundance Kid and Ethel Place at a bullfight in Mexico City.
In 1991, research historian Dan Buck and Anthropologist Dr. Clyde Snow exhumed the bodies of the “bandito Yankees,” killed an buried in San Vicente, Bolivia, and conducted DNA tests to match genetic material with descendants of Cassidy and Longabaugh. The negative results left the case open to historical debate as to whether Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were killed in South America or merely encouraged the rumors of their death in order to get the Pinkertons off their trail and to start a new life outside of crime.
As a result of their research and travels, Donna Ernst wrote a book, Sundance – My Uncle (Creative Publishing Co, Box 9292, College Station, Tx., 77842, 1992), which chronicles the full story of Harry Alonzo Longabaugh, at least what could be learned today.
At a meeting of Western Outlaw-Lawmen History Association, Donna Ernst said, “While I am not a professional writer, I don’t mind doing a lot of research. I have mixed my desire for accuracy and my access to private family information together with the historical details of Sundance’s life. In the process I have found some new information, and have tried to correct a few inaccuracies.”
Harry Longabaugh, Will Carver, Ben Kilpatrick, Harvey Logan, Butch Cassidy.
Photo Courtesy of Union Pacific Railroad Museum
Next: CHARLIE GONDORF – THE STING’S ATLANTIC CITY CONNCTION
Robert Redford and Paul Newman made two memorial movies together – Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid and the Sting.
Redford played Butch Cassidy’s sidekick the Sundance Kid while Newman was Charlie Gondorf in The Sting, both historical characters with Atlantic City connections.
Gondorf, the King of the Big Con confidence men of the early part of the last century, was an Atlantic City bartender when he wasn’t playing the inside man in big time swindles as portrayed in the movie The Sting.
Then there’s the legend that Harry Longabaugh – the Sundance Kid, was from Atlantic City, which turns out to be partially true.
In the movie Butch Cassidy & Sundance Kid, there’s a scene where they get off a train in a desolate place in South America, and Butch Cassidy, whose idea it was to go there, says, “It could be worse. You get a lot more for your money in Bolivia, I know, I checked it out.”
The Sundance Kid then responds, “This might be the garden spot of the whole country. People may travel hundreds of miles just to get to this spot where we’re standing now. This might be the Atlantic City of all Bolivia for all we know.”
Cassidy says, “Look, now I know a lot more about Bolivia than you know about Atlantic City, New Jersey, I can tell you that.”
“Ah, ha! you do, huh?” says the Kid. “I was born there. I was born in New Jersey. Brought up there.”
Incredulously, Butch Cassidy looks up, “You’re from the east? I didn’t know that.”
Donna and Paul Ernst, who lived in Ocean City, NJ, saw the movie and didn’t think anything about it, but were startled when they read a National Geographic Magazine article “The Outlaw Trail,” by Robert Redford, in which he mentions that the Sundance Kid’s real name was Harry Alonzo Longabaugh. And there is a town in Wyoming near the Hole in the Wall canyon where they hung out called Atlantic City.
“Well, Longabaugh isn’t exactly Smith,” said Donna Ernest, who wrote to the magazine, whose historian sent her a detailed Longabaugh family history that showed that the Sundance Kid was the brother of Paul Ernst’s great-grandfather.
Paul then remembered his “grandpop” at a holiday dinner if the family was interested in hearing the story of his “uncle Harry, who had a sidekick, and were like Jesse James. They robbed banks and gave it to poor people, and died in South America.”
But then he said, “Na, isn’t anyone’s business, forget it.”
His grandfather repeated the story a number of times over the years, but the family just thought he was out of his head, and he was senile when he died in March, 1976.
Unfortunately, Grandpop went to his grave with the details of the story of his “Uncle Henry,” the Sundance Kid. “He never told anyone all he knew,” said Donna, “and he died in silence, taking his memories with him.”
Once intrigued however, Paul and Donna took up the trail of the outlaws and learned a lot over the following twenty years.
Harry Alonzo Longabaugh – aka the Sundance Kid, was not actually born in Atlantic City, as the movie attests, but rather in Mont Clare, on the Schuylkill Canal in Pennsylvania.
According to Donna Ernst, “Because Mont Clare, Pennsylvania is extremely small, historians thought it was actually Mont Clare, New Jersey, and that assumption eventually caused the line in the movie where Redford, as the Sundance Kid, claims he was born in Atlantic City.”
Harry – the Sundance Kid, had a brother Harvey, who did live in Atlantic City, and is credited with helping to build the first boardwalk. Since his brother had a place at the Shore, Harry frequently visited him, and thus the Atlantic City connection was firmly established.
Becoming entranced with the subject, Donna and Paul began an intense search of family history in order to learn as much about Harry Longabaugh as they could, digging through old family and official records. According to Donna, “We discovered a Conrad Longabaugh had immigrated to Philadelphia on December 24, 1772, aboard the brig Morning Star. He fought in the Revolutionary War and then raised his family in Eastern Pennsylvania. His descendants eventually settled in Mont Clare, where during the spring of 1867, Harry Alongzo Longabaugh was born.”
On August 30, 1882 the restless fourteen year old Harry left to go West with some cousins in a covered wagon, eventually settling in Cortez, Colorado, where they lived for four years. After working a cattle drive to Montana in 1886, he went to the Black Hills area, where at Sundance, Wyoming, on February 27, 1887, he allegedly stole a light grey horse, a gun and a saddle form an employee of the VVV Ranch. After being caught, the 20 year old attempted to escape by jumping off a train, but was recaptured. The local Yellowstone Journal newspaper compared him to Jesse James and attributed some other local crimes to him. In response, from the Sundance jail, he wrote a letter to the editor.
“In your issue of the 7th, I read a very sensational and partly untrue article, which places me before the public not even second to the notorious Jesse James. Admitting that I have done nothing wrong and expecting to be dealt with according to the law and not by false reports from parties who should blush with shame to make them, I ask a little of your space to set my case before the public in a true light. In the first place, I have always worked for an honest living…and was arrested…and charged with having stolen a horse at Sundance, where I was being taken by Sheriff Ryan, whom I escaped from by jumping from the cars, which I judged were running at the rate of 100 miles an hour. After this my course of outlawry commenced, and I suffered terribly for the want of food in the hope of getting back south without being detected, where I would be looked upon as I always have been, and not as a criminal. Contrary to the statement in the Journal, I deny having stolen any horses in Canada, or anyplace else, up to the time I was captured, at which time I was riding a horse which I bought and paid for. Nor had I the slightest idea of stealing any horses. I am aware that some of your readers will say my statement should be taken or what it is worth, on account of the hard name which has been forced upon me, nevertheless it is true. As for my recapture by Deputy Sheriff Davis, all I can say is that he did his work well and were it not for him ‘playing possum’ I would now be on my way south, where I had hoped to go and live a better life.” Signed Harry Lonabaugh.
When Harry Lonabaugh got out of jail the newspaper reported, “the kid has been released from Sundance,” and the Sundance Kid was born.
As Donna Ernst relates, “Stealing horses soon became robbing banks and holding up trains. Sundance and his pal Butch Cassidy were the leaders of a loose-knit group of thieves better known as the Wild Bunch. And together these men were so skilled at escaping the law that the American Bankers Association and the Union Pacific Railroad hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency to capture them – at any cost.”
There's no evidence, despite his reputation as a gunfighter, that the Sundance Kid ever shot or killed anyone.
In the course of their two decades long quest to learn as much as possible about their renegade relation, Donna and Paul spent their summer vacations traveling the West’s “Outlaw Trails,” where they visited banks their great-uncle once robbed and the cabins in the mountains where they hid out from the law.
They also found another Atlantic City connection – Atlantic City, Wyoming, one of the ghost towns near Hole-in-the-Wall Wyoming.
They trailed the Wild Bunch to Fort Worth, Texas, where the gang regrouped and had the famous photograph taken. “Sundance and Butch saw their way of life changing before their eyes,” Donna relates. “Their fellow outlaws were all being killed or caught and jailed. It was time to move on, to take a trip to South America, and to start a new life. So the Wild Bunch met in Fort Worth for a good-bye celebration. One of the things they did was have their picture taken together, but unknown to them, the photographer placed the picture on display in his window, where it was seen by a Wells Fargo detective who recognized one of the men.”
With the heat hot on their tail, says Donna, “the Sundance Kid returned home with his wife, Ethel Place, to see his family, brother Harvey and his sisters Samanna and Emma, and meet his nieces and nephews, some born in his absence. Then he explained his decision to move to South America and told his family he was going to settle down, buy a ranch and go straight.”
According to the reports of the Pinkerton Detectives who were after him, Sundance and Ethel were seen “frolicking” at the beach in Atlantic City, where the Sundance Kid’s brother Harvey lived at the time. “We suspect they visited Harvey’s family at the beach,” says Donna, “and at that time Grandpop was about eleven years old.”
According to the legend, and the movie, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid fled to South America and were the two American bandits killed in a shootout in San Vicente, Bolivia on November 8, 1908.
But Lula Parker Betenson, Butch Cassidy’s sister, wrote a book Butch Cassidy, My Brother (Bringham Young Press, 1975) in which she claims her brother returned home years after he was reported killed in South America, and told the family that he last saw the Sundance Kid and Ethel Place at a bullfight in Mexico City.
In 1991, research historian Dan Buck and Anthropologist Dr. Clyde Snow exhumed the bodies of the “bandito Yankees,” killed an buried in San Vicente, Bolivia, and conducted DNA tests to match genetic material with descendants of Cassidy and Longabaugh. The negative results left the case open to historical debate as to whether Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were killed in South America or merely encouraged the rumors of their death in order to get the Pinkertons off their trail and to start a new life outside of crime.
As a result of their research and travels, Donna Ernst wrote a book, Sundance – My Uncle (Creative Publishing Co, Box 9292, College Station, Tx., 77842, 1992), which chronicles the full story of Harry Alonzo Longabaugh, at least what could be learned today.
At a meeting of Western Outlaw-Lawmen History Association, Donna Ernst said, “While I am not a professional writer, I don’t mind doing a lot of research. I have mixed my desire for accuracy and my access to private family information together with the historical details of Sundance’s life. In the process I have found some new information, and have tried to correct a few inaccuracies.”
Harry Longabaugh, Will Carver, Ben Kilpatrick, Harvey Logan, Butch Cassidy.
Photo Courtesy of Union Pacific Railroad Museum
Next: CHARLIE GONDORF – THE STING’S ATLANTIC CITY CONNCTION
Sunday, June 26, 2011
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