While looking through family files to help a patron with their research, we uncovered a series of newspaper clippings about The Sundance Kid. If you are a fan of Western history or Western films, you have probably heard of him as well as Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch, also known as the Hole in the Wall Gang. However, did you know The Sundance Kid was born in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania?
Born around 1867 in Mont Clare, Harry A. Longabaugh spent his childhood in Montgomery and Chester Counties. By 1880, the Census has him living in West Vincent Township working as a hired servant. According to the newspaper articles we found, about a year later Harry moved to Colorado with his cousin George.
1880 Census, West Vincent, Chester County, PA
Around the age of 20, Harry stole a horse when he was in Sundance, Wyoming and the local newspapers started calling him "the kid from Sundance." By 1889, he met Butch Cassidy, whose real name was Robert LeRoy Parker. Together their gang robbed banks and trains throughout the American West.
According to a diary kept by the Longabaugh family, Harry came back to Montgomery County to visit his sister Samantha (Sammanna) a few times during this period. This was no easy feat as Pinkerton Agents (a security company hired by the railroad) were constantly pursuing him and his fellow outlaws. He also reportedly visited his brother and fellow outlaw, Elwood, in San Francisco. Aside from these two siblings, the rest of the family appears to have distanced themselves from Harry as he turned to a life of crime.
By 1901, Harry and Robert were forced to flee the United States as the Pinkerton Agents pursued them. Records have them living in Cholila, Argentina at that time. By 1908, the paper trail for both men seems to disappear. In November of that year, a courier for the Aramayo, Franke, and Cia Silver Mine was robbed of the company's payroll by two masked Americans near San Vincente, Bolivia. Believing the men to be Butch and Sundance, Bolivian authorities pursued them and a shootout commenced. During a lull in the fire fight, gunshots and screams were heard from the outlaws' hiding place. Upon entering the building, the Bolivian authorities found the two men dead. One had been severely injured from Bolivian bullets, and appeared to have been shot in the head by his partner to put him out of his misery. The other then turned the gun on himself.
Proper identification was never made of these two men, but the authorities believed them to be Butch and Sundance. Several attempts to identify the location of the bodies in the San Vincente cemetery have thus far failed, causing some to speculate the men were not the two famous outlaws. Without any paper or DNA evidence, the circumstances surrounding their deaths remains a mystery.
