You can support Canadian History Ehx with a donation at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/craigU
Since its debut in 1897 a Canadian has won the Boston Marathon22 times.
Ronald MacDonald of Halifax won the prestigious race in 1898, while Jack Caffery of Hamilton won it twice in 1900 and 1901.
Johnny Miles, also of Halifax, won it in 1926 and 1929.
Gerard Cote of Montreal won it four times, in 1940, 1943, 1944 and 1948.
But perhaps the greatest Canadian winner won it only once.
In 1907 a young man from the Six Nations Reserve crossed the finish line in record time.
But his story is so much more than that one historic race.
I’m Craig Baird, this is Canadian History Ehx and today we are going the distance as we run alongside the Bulldog of Britannia.
This is the story of Tom Longboat!
Among the Haudenosaunee, distance running was an important part of their culture.
It meant much more than competing in a race against others or time.
It was a way of life.
Through long-distance running, the Haudenosaunee gathered information about other nations, carried messages such as stringed wampum, and brought councils together.
Haudenosaunee runners were honoured and respected within the community.
Within their traditional territory emerged the oldest long distance road race in North America.
The Around the Bay Road Race.
First held on Christmas Day in 1894, it was the brainchild of Hamilton Herald newspaper and cigar store owner Bill Carroll.
That first year, 13 racers ran 31 kilometres around Hamilton Harbour. Billy Marshall won and earned a $25 silver cup and some cigars.
About 25 kilometres southwest, an eight-year-old boy realized he had a gift, and a love, for running.
Tom Longboat was born on the Six Nations Reserve on June 4, 1886 and was the middle child of George and Elizabeth Longboat, sandwiched between older sister Lucy, and a younger brother Simon.
As soon as Longboat could walk, he was running.
He ran amongst the cows on his family’s farm.
He raced his mother’s wagon 40km from Hamilton to Brantford.
To paraphrase Forrest Gump, if Tom Longboat was going somewhere, he was running.
But it wasn’t all smooth sailing, before he could turn his passion into lasting fame, he had to get through some rough seas.
When he was five, his father died, leaving his mother alone to raise the family and times were tough as they were often on the brink of poverty.
But they persevered for the most part until Longboat turned 12 and he was torn from his family and thrown into the Mohawk Institute Residential School in Brantford.
First opened in 1831, it was one of the oldest residential schools in Canada.
Government policy forced Indigenous children to be taken from their families and placed in institutions where they were forbidden to speak their language, practice traditional beliefs, and were forced to convert to Christianity.
The goal was forced assimilation and was nothing short of cultural genocide.
Emotional, physical and sexual abuse was common at the school, and the food was so bad students called the school The Mush Hole.
The Mohawk Institute Residential School would operate until 1970, long outliving one of its most famous alums, Tom Longboat.
For Longboat, his life at the school was one of the worst periods of his life.
To escape, Longboat did what he did best.
He ran.
The first time he ran away, he was caught and returned to the school.
When he could, Longboat ran away again.
This time, he was able to escape the clutches of the residential school system and went to live with his uncle.
Years later when he was famous, Longboat was asked to speak to students at the school.
He gave a simple response,
“I wouldn’t even send my dog to that place.”
Away from the Residential School System, Longboat continued to run out of passion for it, since he didn’t see a path to fame and fortune through it, for his it was just something he did.
That changed in 1901 when he was 15 and Bill Davis from the Six Nation Reserve finished second in the Boston Marathon.
Suddenly, Longboat running could be something more.
It could be a way of life.
On Victoria Day 1905, Longboat ran in his first race in Caledonia, Ontario. The 19-year-old finished second.
After that race, he began to train under Bill Davis and a few months later he ran the prestigious Around the Bay Road Race in 1906
This time, he won!
Defeating his closest competitor by three minutes and nearly breaking record time in the process.
The Ottawa Herald wrote of his race,
“Marsh was the pacemaker in the early part of the race, but right behind him was Longboat, who occasionally shot to the front just to test his speed. They alternated as pacemakers until the Stone Road junction was reached, when Longboat decided that the time had come for him to cut loose. He left Marsh as if he had been standing.”
With a major race under his belt, he set his sights on conquering one of the most famous races in North America.
The Boston Marathon.
The Boston Marathon owes its creation to the first Summer Olympics in 1896 where a special race was invented as part of the Athletics programme. Seventeen athletes from 5 nations competed and was the crowning jewel of the games which sparked an international interest in running.
On April 19, 1897, the first Boston Marathon was held, won by John “J.J.” McDermott.
From the onset Canadians did well.
In the first 10 Boston Marathons, two Canadians, Ronald MacDonald and Jack Caffery, won three times.
By the time the 11th Marathon rolled around in 1907, Tom Longboat was ready.
He would cement his name in history by following in the footsteps of his mentor Bill Davis, and he wasn’t looking to finish second.
He wanted to win.
By 1907, the Boston Marathon was already a major event which brought out the best runners in North America and it would take 13 more years before Carl Linder of Greece ended North America’s dominance of the race in 1920.
Longboat was just one of 124 athletes on the starting line. which was a lot in 1907 but is a drop in the bucket in 2024.30,000 people take part in the Marathon now.
Jack Caffey held the record of running the 26.2-mile (42.2 km) race in 2:29:23. He set it during his second win in 1901 and it held until the day Longboat hoped to not only win the Marathon, but maybe also give that record a run for its money.
Longboat wasn’t feeling his best though.
He had been battling a cold and the prospect of running through a rainy day was not terribly appealing.
Regardless, destiny called, and Longboat answered.
As the race began, the leading group, which included Longboat, crossed the tracks just before a freight train passed which left 114 runners behind. While waiting for the train to pass, the runners ran in circles.
In those days things were much less organized, and marathon runners competed alongside trains, automobiles, horse-drawn carriages and bicycles on the route.
For much of the early part of the race, Longboat was in ninth place as he struggled through the rain and wind.
But then Longboat suddenly lengthened his stride and began to overtake those in front of him.
At one hour 20 minutes, Longboat entered first place.
As he entered the most difficult portion of the race, he was said to have sailed up the hills so fast it was as if he was running on level ground.
With each stride, he widened the gap between himself and the competition.
As he reached the top of the last incline his closest competitor had not even reached the bottom of it.
Tom Longboat crossed the finish line of the race at 2 hours 24 minutes and 24 seconds.
Five minutes faster than the record from 1901. It would be another four years before anyone else ran a faster time.
What did he do after winning the Boston Marathon?
He immediately went to the Boston Athletic Association’s gymnasium and ran on the small indoor track.
After two cool down laps, members of the club and his manager Charles Ashley asked him to stop so he could have the mandatory physical examination.
Longboat instead walked a few more laps before he finally agreed to see the doctor.
When questioned by reporters, the Longboat stated without boasting that it was warmer the day before, and if he ran on that day, he would have recorded a better time.
The Ottawa Citizen reported on his win, stating,
“Longboat running as steadily as if on a practice canter, his long legs eating up yards at every step, was given a terrific reception as he breasted the tape. He was the favourite, and many bets were placed on him at even money. All the Canadians, nevertheless, made creditable showings.”
But not everyone was a fan.
As soon as Longboat crossed over the finish line, Americans accused him of jobbing or using performance enhancing drugs.
This was not an accusation they levied at any of the other previous winners of the Boston Marathon, including Canadians Ronald MacDonald and Jack Caffery.
It came down to the fact that Longboat was an Indigenous man, and the racist attitudes of the time meant many could not accept that he had won the race against white racers fair and square.
But Canadians it seemed couldn’t have been happier to see Longboat defeat Americans on their own turf.
The Montreal Gazette wrote,
“The people have liked to see an Indian win. There may be superior folk who think that it is no great thing to be a champion runner, or football player, or oarsman, but the popular vote is against them. We glory in our athletes in this northern clime.”
Longboat’s journey back to Canada was covered by newspapers, and a massive reception was planned in Toronto upon his arrival on April 23.
But when he arrived Toronto City Council voted not to present Longboat with the traditional cabinet of silver given to other champion athletes. Instead, they voted to give him $500 to be put towards an education in partnership with the YMCA. This fit with the racist belief that First Nations people were uneducated and needed the help of white settlers to succeed.
The Toronto Star wrote,
“YMCA Secretary J.W. Hopkins agreed, remarking that Longboat has practically only a third-book education, but has the capability for learning.”
And if you’re wondering… yeah… Longboat never received that $500 either
Longboat would face adversity even before he arrived in Toronto too.
He was delayed at the border because of a e bronze statue of Mercury, the Roman messenger god known for his Winged Feet who is often associated with running.
The statue had been seized by a customs agent because a duty had not been paid on it and appeals fell on deaf ears.
The agent had never heard of the Boston Marathon or Tom Longboat, and it was only after the Customs Chief, a Mr. Boyle, was called that the statue was allowed to pass through customs without a duty.
Once on Canadian soil Longboat’s train seemed to stop at nearly every community in southern Ontario on its way to Toronto.
At each stop, there were requests to see him race.
The city of Woodstock offered him a $100 watch or diamond ring to run a 10-mile race on Victoria Day.
Longboat’s manager Charles Ashley stated that there had been at least 15 requests to race, but Longboat had no intention of running anytime soon.
Instead, he wanted to go back to the Six Nations to see the runners there, many of whom he considered better than himself.
Longboat said,
“I am not the champion runner of the Six Nations you know. They have faster men than I am there. That’s right, but they haven’t sand enough to run a long race. When they see me start, they quit. If they wouldn’t quit, they would beat me. I’m going up there to pick out another good Indian runner.”
He arrived in Toronto on April 23, and toured through the city as thousands of people cheered him on along with his companion Mayor Emerson Coatsworth.
A torchlight procession and three brass bands also accompanied the automobile and walking behind it were members of dozens of athletic clubs in the city.
It was estimated that 200,000 people came out to see the champion Tom Longboat.
Soon after he was celebrated as a hero, Longboat was evicted from the YMCA, where he was staying.
The reasons given changed depending on who reported it but included breaking curfew, smoking, drinking a bottle of beer and being in the company of a woman.
His manager Charles Ashley would soon be out of the picture, replaced by Tom Flanagan, the director of the Irish Canadian Athletic Club who promised to take Longboat’s career to the next level.
In the days that followed, Longboat was asked many times if he would defend his title at the 1908 Boston Marathon.
It was hoped by many that he would join fellow Canadian Jack Caffery in the record books not only for his time but also by winning the Boston Marathon twice.
But Longboat announced he would not run the legendary race ever again.
In his mind, he had conquered that challenge and there was no need to try it again.
Besides, he had another race in mind.
The Olympics.
In 1896, The Olympic Games had returned after a hiatus of 1,503 years, give or take a month.
Well, they weren’t the same as what the ancients Greeks competed in but thanks to Baron Pierre de Coubertin they were revived as a way to promote international peace and friendship through sports, and he helped created the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
As I mentioned in those first games, the marathon was one of the inaugural competitions with17 athletes from five nations, and Greek athletes took first and second place.
The marathon returned at the 1900 Olympics in Paris, and again in 1904 in St. Louis.
Having won the Boston Marathon in 1907, Tom Longboat was ready to race at the 1908 Olympics in London, England.
He was the favourite to win, as William Foran, a Canadian Athletic Federation official stated,
“Tom Longboat will start in the Olympic Marathon and Tom Longboat will win.”
But The Americans were still bothered by Longboat winning the Boston Marathon and protested his attendance stating he was not an amateur.
The Toronto Evening Telegram wrote prior to the Games about the American claims,
“Canada has been quite sufficiently sacrificed to the Old Country craze for pleasing the Yankees at all costs. If this craze is to be carried out of diplomacy into sport, and Longboat is to be disqualified . . . then every Canadian athlete owes it to his country to leave the Olympian games.”
The Olympic race course was designed to be at, quote “about 26 miles”.
Athletes would run from the Royal Entrance at Windsor Castle, through Eton, Slough, Sudbury, Wembley, and Wormwood Scrubs ending in White City Stadium where the finish line would be in front of the Royal Box.
That “about 26 miles” was exactly as it sounds.
In the late-1990s, marathoner John Disley measured the route of the 1908 marathon and found it was 159 metres too short to be a true marathon.
With everything ready to go, 55 competitors including Tom Longboat lined up on the starting line on July 24, 1908.
Everything seemed to be going well for Longboat through the first half of the race, but then things began to change.
Despite sitting in second place, he started to slow down and appeared to be stumbling along the course.
Then, to everyone’s shock, he collapsed at about 32 km or a half hour from the finish line.
He wasn’t the only one.
Of the 55 runners who started the race, only 27 finished.
The Windsor star wrote,
“Tom Longboat, the Canadian runner, gave up at the 20th mile. He was leading when he was hurt and quit. Longboat arrived in a motor at the stadium. The announcement caused laughter and cheers.”
Many collapsed due to dehydration, including Dorando Pietri, the only man ahead of Longboat for much of the race.
He fell from extreme fatigue and dehydration near the finish line.
He was helped up by umpires, fell four more times, but crossed the finish line at two hours 54 minutes and 46 seconds.
While he won the race, he was disqualified because he was aided by the umpires.
After Longboat didn’t finish the race, his manager accused someone of drugging him to put him out of contention, while Longboat’s critics accused him of being drunk.
Some claimed that Longboat’s manager Tom Flanagan had drugged his own runner to collect $100,000 in bets against his client.
Many people weren’t pleased that they didn’t get to see Longboat finish the race, and they wanted to find out who truly was the best marathon runner in the world.
Longboat or Pietri.
Neither got a gold medal in London.
Following the 1908 Olympic Marathon, the world was gripped with marathon fever. Dorando Pietri and Tom Longboat became two of the most famous runners in the world and everyone clamored to see the two men who should have vied for medals, compete against each other.
If this sounds familiar, it could be because something similar happened after the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.
Canadian sprinter Donovan Bailey set a world record in the 100 metres of 9.84 seconds and became the fastest man alive which is the title given to the winner of that discipline at the games.
But when American Michael Johnson won the 200-metre race in Atlanta, Americans like sportscaster Bob Costas started to call Johnson the world’s fastest man.
A debate began over who was the World’s Fastest Man.
Donovan Bailey or Michael Johnson.
The world had racing fever and to determine the fastest runner, a 150 metres race was set up for June 1, 1997, in front of 30,000 spectators at the Skydome, now Rogers Centre, in Toronto and it would be broadcast across Canada and 54 other countries.
The winner would receive the official title and $1 million.
The rivalry had become bitter between Bailey and Johnson and what happened next would cement it.
Racers were on their marks and at the sound of the starting gun they exploded from the blocks and Bailey on the inside track immediately pulled ahead.
As they rounded the corner of the track Bailey found another gear as Johnson pulled up at the 110-metre mark and slowed down to a stop as he appeared to have a hamstring strain.
Donovan Bailey was the clear winner, and the bitter rivals never mended their relationship.
Johnson and Bailey weren’t the first rivals to go head-to-head in front of thousands of fans to decide the world’s fastest title.
It happened almost 90 years earlier at Madison Square Garden in New York City as Longboat and Pietri went head-to-head in front of a sold-out crowd.
But for that to happen Longboat would first have to come out of retirement.
Soon after the London Olympics he had shocked the world when he announced he would be putting away his running cleats.
But the love of running was too hard to shake, and he quickly changed his mind, when he ran in the Toronto Ward Marathon in the autumn of 1908, and won it for a third straight time while setting a record time.
After that race, he turned professional and promptly fired his manager, Tom Flanagan.
He toyed with the idea of having an unnamed Mohawk friend from Desoranto represent him but in the end, he gave Flanagan his job back.
With Longboat out of retirement plans were then made for an epic race at Madison Square Garden
It became one of the biggest sporting events of the 1910s.
When doors opened on Dec. 16, 1908, people rushed in to get a seat to watch the race.
The New York Herald wrote,
“No consideration was shown by the frantic mob that stormed the entrance on Madison Avenue. Women were tossed about, crushed and battered in the maelstrom of struggling men who were fighting one another in a desperate attempt to get past the barriers.”
While seats were selling for two to three dollars, it wasn’t long before people were just taking whatever seats they wanted, including reserved seats.
Ushers and police were pushed to the side by the massive mob.
With the receipts of the race being $15,000, it was estimated that each runner would receive $3,750.
Today, that would be worth over $100,000.
In front of a sold-out crowd, Longboat and Pietri faced off at the starting line and once they were off for much of the race, the two men were nearly neck-and-neck, with Longboat typically leading just ahead of Pietri.
But then everything changed.
Near the end of the race Pietri suddenly collapsed and fell on the track.
Many in the crowd believed he had suffered a heart attack.
He was alive but had tripped as the two men rounded the track.
Like with Johnson, Pietri was accused of faking an injury rather than lose to Longboat.
To this, Pietri said later,
“I did not collapse last night because the pace set by Longboat during the last mile was too fast. Rounding the turn, Longboat slowed up very suddenly and I was so close to him and tripped. Once down, I could not regain my feet.”
Whatever the reason, Dorando Pietri did not finish, and Longboat won, completing the marathon in two hours 45 minutes and five seconds.
The Montreal Gazette wrote,
“The scene that followed Dorando’s dramatic failure in the London Stadium was nothing to that which was witnessed in Madison Square Garden last night. He tried to struggle to his feet but failed. He was carried to his dressing room, where he was soon revived. In the meantime, Longboat shot around the track in the sprint pace and as the yells and Indian whoops cracked one’s ear drums, he galloped in a winner.”
Two weeks after that major victory, and payday, Longboat crossed another milestone off the list.
He got married.
On Dec. 30, he met Laurette Maracle, a Mohawk woman who lived in Toronto at the altar.
Maracle was a Sunday School teacher and the two had met four years earlier.
She had been by his side at the big race at Madison Square Garden and cheered him on to victory by saying.
“It is win or lose with you.”
With his biggest cheerleader by his side Longboat was ready to conquer new worlds.
Longboat may have been a champion, and the best marathon runner on the planet, but that didn’t stop people from using racism to criticize him.
He was often called a member of a quote “pathetic and vanishing race”. Sometimes the press wrote he was poorly educated, unmanageable and obstinate.
While white athletes were said to run, newspapers stated Longboat galloped, and quote,
“Smiled as wide as a hippo.”
The press portrayed Longboat not as a man who excelled at what he did, instead they dehumanized him and painted him as more beast than human.
His nicknames focused on his heritage, rather than his abilities. They included Big Chief, The Irish Indian, The Wonderful Redskin and the Bronze Wonder.
Even when he won the Boston Marathon, some newspapers congratulated the white people around him, rather than Longboat.
The Toronto Star wrote,
“His trainers are to be congratulated for having such a docile pupil.”
How Longboat trained was often at the center of the criticism lobbed against him.
Unusual at the time, he would have hard workouts, followed by active rest such as long walks.
These recovery periods annoyed his manager, promoters and the press who called him lazy.
This alternating of hard and easy workouts with recovery days may have been unusual for the time, but Longboat turned out to be ahead of the curve. Today, most runners train like this.
And one of the loudest critics was Lou Marsh, the top Canadian sportswriter of his day, who seemed to have a hate for Longboat and repeatedly wrote articles criticizing him.
At one point he wrote that Longboat was,
“The original dummy, wily, unreliable, as hard to train as a leopard.”
Quotes like that in Marsh’s articles is what led to the renaming of Canada’s top athletic award from The Lou Marsh Memorial Trophy to the Northern Star Award in 2022.
Meanwhile the rivalry between Tom Longboat and Dorando Pieri wasn’t over.
Five days after Longboat’s wedding on Jan. 5, 1908, Longboat ran against Pietri once again, this time in front of 11,000 people in Buffalo.
The two runners clocked a time of two hours, twenty-six minutes, over the first twenty-four kilometres.
But the Pietri once again collapsed this time at the 30-kilometre mark into the arms of his brother.
Longboat continued for the next 12 kilometres of the race on his own and staggered across the finish line bleeding at the knees.
He won that race but then shortly after he lost his manager.
Despite the money or maybe because of it, Tom Flanagan complained that Longboat was unmanageable and soon sold his contract for $2,000 to a New York promoter
“He was all right until he started to make money. There were times when he did not feel like running, when he refused to train properly, and just generally went prima donna on me.”
In truth, Flanagan was looking to make money off Longboat quickly, and selling the contract was the easiest way to do that.
Longboat was hurt especially considering Flanagan had been the best man at his wedding only a month earlier.
Longboat said,
“He sold me just like a racehorse to make money.”
Regardless of the split Longboat pressed on.
In February 1909, he raced against Alfred Shrubb who was another top runner in the British Empire, having won several championships in Britain and Canada.
Shrubb and Longboat had already raced each other several times, with Shrubb winning on the shorter races, and Longboat winning on the longer marathons.
On Feb. 5, 1909, Shrubb and Longboat went head-to-head against each other in front of 15,000 people at Madison Square Garden.
It seemed to many in the crowd that Shrubb was going to win as he had a 10-lap lead over Longboat by the 30-kilometre mark of the race.
Believing he wasn’t trying, the crowd began to boo Longboat, but he was just biding his time and waiting to strike.
Shrubb was a shorter distance runner, and Longboat had the endurance to outlast him.
He just needed to find his moment and attack.
With 10 kilometres left in the race, Longboat suddenly surged.
He lapped Shrubb, who had to slow down to a walk several times.
The Toronto Daily Star wrote,
“Shrubb now came down to a walk again for nearly a lap. Then he ran a couple of laps and walked again. Now Longboat was within four laps of him and both men were frantically urged by their representatives while the 12,000 people in the Garden made the place a bedlam.”
With each lap, Longboat closed the gap until he passed Shrubb for the last time and claimed victory once again with a time of two hours 53 minutes and 40 seconds, a full two minutes ahead of Shrubb who couldn’t finish the race and fell into the arms of his friends, completely exhausted.
The Montreal Gazette wrote,
“The Englishman, unable to continue further, collapsed on the track, leaving the triumphant Longboat to finish the race alone, a winner.”
Sadly, this would be the apex of Longboat’s career.
After 1909, back and knee problems plagued Longboat.
These problems were well-known among the running community, but sportswriters simply stated that he was not doing well due to quote,
“Indian laziness.”
Tom Flanagan further spread rumours in the press that Longboat did not train much.
Even with negative coverage from the press, and his back and knee problems, Longboat managed to win. He just wasn’t as dominant.
He won two races in 1911, and then in Edinburgh in 1912 set a world record for finishing 15 miles in one hour and 20 minutes.
Crowds still came to see him run but gone were the days of the hysteria, when tens of thousands of people lined the streets to see him.
If Longboat was wondering what came next, the hand of history decided for him when the First World War began in 1914.
Longboat volunteered for service in February 1916, joining the 108th Sportsmen’s Battalion. He had attempted to join earlier in the war but was turned down because he was married. This decision was eventually overturned.
In France, Longboat was transferred to the 107th Timber Wolf Battalion, where he was given the job of dispatch runner.
There couldn’t have been someone better suited for that role.
However, being a dispatch runner was an incredibly dangerous job.
They had to deliver urgent orders and messages between headquarters and military units. When communication lines were cut during a battle, the dispatch runner was an important part of keeping communications intact.
While everyone sought shelter during a battle, dispatch runners had to leave the safety of the trenches to transport messages amid gunfire and shell explosions.
During the First World War, Longboat was wounded twice, and twice declared dead in the newspapers.
The Ottawa Journal reported on Oct. 15, 1917, stating:
“Word has received here from Tom Daly, former trainer of Tecumseh Lacrosse Club and Toronto Baseball Club, who went overseas with the sportsmen’s battalion, that Tom Longboat, the famous Indian marathon runner, has been killed in action.”
One rumour swirled that Longboat had entered a communication trench and was buried by a shell blast.
For six days, he was buried until he was finally rescued.
In 1919, Longboat stated this was not true.
These false reports had a major impact on Longboat’s personal life.
His wife, who had believed he was dead, remarried. After she found out he was alive, she decided not to leave her new husband.
During the war, Longboat served in both Passchendaele and Vimy Ridge, rose to the rank of Lance Corporal, and won several inter-battalion sporting contests including a 13-km race at the Canadian Corps Dominion Day competitions on July 1, 1918.
But while Longboat was in Europe, a man impersonating him was touring around the United States and making a lot of money while doing it.
Edgar Laplante was a conman and liar.
Born in Rhode Island, he spent his adult life conning businessmen, befriending politicians and seducing women by posing as everything from Chief White Elk to American war heroes.
He was able to meet Edward VIII during a visit to England by calling himself Prince Tewanna Ray and left behind a series of unpaid bills and loans he never intended to repay.
Unfortunately, the most famous marathon runner in the world, Tom Longboat, was just another victim of Laplante.
Laplante didn’t steal money directly from Longboat. Instead, he stole his identity to con others out of their money.
While Longboat was serving his country overseas, Laplante started to travel around the United States giving concerts and lectures while collecting a lot of money in appearance fees in the process.
And it seemed that no one in the United States cared to double check just how Longboat could be in France and the United States at the same time.
In August 1917, Laplante, under Longboat’s name, enlisted as a civilian crewman with the US Army Transport Service.
This made news across the United States and most newspapers used a photo of Laplante who looked nothing like Longboat.
To add insult to injury, when a newspaper did question who the real Longboat was, the one in France or the one in the United States, they often sided with Laplante.
In Canada, the newspapers were less fooled. The Vancouver Province wrote,
“The Tom Longboat faker has sprung into notoriety again. This time he has, according to the latest information, joined the United States transport service. The bogus Longboat is evidently the same individual who worked the trick in California until exposed. One thing to the faker’s credit, is that he is persistent.”
In France, Longboat heard about Laplante, and he wrote a letter to the imposter threatening legal action. quote
“I am going to have three charges against this man. One for making false statements, second for impersonation, third for intent to defraud the public at large.”
Yet even when American newspapers circulated the letter by Longboat, they ran photos of Laplant instead.
Eventually, Laplante gave up the Longboat charade and moved on to other cons.
He made his way to Switzerland where he was arrested and spent a year in jail.
Then in 1925, he was arrested in Italy and spent four years in jail.
He eventually died in New York City in 1944.
As for Longboat, he returned home from the First World War, ready to return to civilian life.
The Toronto Star wrote, on May 10, 1919, when Longboat arrived back home in Toronto.
“Tom didn’t have much to say but smiled a broad smile when another Tom, Tommie Church, Mayor, took off the Indians khaki cap and commented upon his luxuriant growth of black hair.”
As soon as he returned, Longboat began to race again.
He still won his races and delighted the crowds, but the races were getting more difficult.
In 1920, Longboat was 34 and reaching the end of his running career.
That year, he decided to take up a homestead in the Canadian West using a Soldiers Grant provided by the federal government.
But the 1920s were to be difficult years for him.
His homestead never produced much, and he worked various jobs in Edmonton. To make money, he pawned his racing medals. They were never claimed and eventually melted down for the gold.
After two years, Longboat returned to Toronto where he was met by his former manager, who gave him a corned beef sandwich at the train station.
The man who always had a bone of contention about Longboat, Lou Marsh, wrote,
“He started out on corn pone, worked up to caviar and now is tickled to get corn beef.”
Eventually, Longboat found a job with the City of Toronto, in the street cleaning department where he cleaned the streets and collected garbage, which delighted some journalists who wrote,
“A rubbish man! A particularly nice rubbish man, an Indian rubbish man!”
Longboat worked for the department for the next 19 years and during that time things began to improve.
He met Martha Silversmith in Toronto, with whom he had four children.
His legend still loomed large as well. Runners often sought him out for advice. The Windsor Star wrote,
“His advice was something to be sought, and his wide experience helped many young men in the marathon field. His great bit of advice was to save strength at the beginning of a race and use it in the finish.”
When reporters took pictures of him working in his overalls and asked him what it was like to be cleaning streets when he was once racing for thousands of people. He said,
“I’m doing alright, just living along.”
But it seemed tragedy was never far off for Longboat.
In 1932, he was attending the Canadian National Exhibition with his family when radio reporter Jane Grey asked him to give an interview where she asked if he wanted to say hello to anyone.
Longboat stated he wanted to speak to his five-year-old son Charles. Some of Charles’ friends heard this on the radio and yelled for him to come listen. As he ran across the road to get to the radio, he was hit by a car and killed.
For the rest of his life, Longboat kept the CNE pennant he and his wife had bought that day. It eventually passed on to one of his son’s following his wife’s death.
In 1936, Lou Marsh, the man who loved tearing into Longboat in his articles, passed away. When asked for comment, Longboat, ever the gentleman said,
“He was one of the finest men I ever met.”
When the Second World War broke out, “Garbageman Longboat” as the newspapers insisted on calling him now, enlisted to serve with the Home Guard.
During this time, a new imposter stole r his identity to get drinks at taverns.
It led to newspapers writing stories about Longboat’s alleged alcoholism, when that was not the case at all.
It got so bad that Longboat eventually sent a picture of himself to the newspapers to stop what he called a two-bit imposter from damaging his reputation.
In 1944, Longboat retired to spend his time with his family and took long walks to Hagersville and back, 11 kilometres, each market day.
On Jan. 9, 1949, Longboat passed away in Brantford from pneumonia.
Upon his death, the Calgary Albertan wrote,
“The courageous Indian brought many running titles to Canada and made Ontario running mad. It is said the parks and back lanes of the Ontario capital were cluttered with aspiring youngsters whose ambition was to become his successor.”
The Windsor Star eulogized him by writing,
“To Canadians born around the turn of the century, or a little later, the name Tom Longboat meant as much as Babe Ruth did in a later era.”
He was buried with new moccasins on his feet, while from head to toe he was clothed in new cotton and woolen garments crafted by his family.
But since his death, how has Longboat been honoured?
There was a time when Longboat was so famous, he received fan mail from movie stars like Clark Gable.
Everyone knew his name, and he graced newspapers across the planet.
And after death, the name of Tom Longboat was not about to disappear.
In 1951, the Tom Longboat Awards were created and given to an outstanding Indigenous athlete in each Canadian province.
Four years later, Longboat was inducted into the Canada Sports Hall of Fame.
In 1976, he was designated as a National Historic Person by the federal government.
In 2000, a stamp was issued by Canada Post to honour him and in 2013, Tom Longboat Lane was opened in Toronto. That same year, June 4 was declared to be Tom Longboat Day in Ontario.
In 2018, a Google Doodle was created to celebrate his life.
In 2022, possibly the biggest honour for a Canadian occurred when a Heritage Minute was made about him.
Throughout his life Longboat endured racism and criticism in the press, but through it all he cemented his legacy as possibly the greatest marathon runner Canada has ever produced.
He did it with class, distinction and a smile on his face as he put one foot in front of the other to the delight of millions.
I’ll finish this episode with a quote from Alfred Shrubb, one of his main rivals.
“He was one of the greatest, if not the greatest marathoner of all time.”
[OUTRO]World, North Bay Nugget, Vancouver Province, Windsor Star, Calgary Albertan
