Gerald Kolpan | The Personal Blog of Author and Media Expert Gerald Kolpan

Harry Longbaugh in 1902 ; William Long-when?

I’ve been writing the past few days about how a well known forensic anthropologist and a documentary filmmaker have dug up the grave of one William Henry Long of Duchesne, Utah and believe the remains are those of Harry Longbaugh (or Longabaugh or Longenbaugh), the outlaw known as the Sundance Kid and the hero of my novel, Etta: a fictionalized account of the life and times of Etta Place, the Kid’s alleged girlfriend.

It could very well be that ol’ Bill is actually the Kid; and that Sundance didn’t die with Butch in Bolivia in 1909. It certainly would have been to the Bolivian federales advantage to lie and say they had killed the famed bandits.

I’ve stated that I think Dr. John McCullough has a good case for Sundance being William.

Still, a few things bother me about all this.

According to a 1901 Pinkerton Detective Agency profile of Sundance, his eyes were “black.” The photo of Sundance taken at DeYoung’s in New York City (left) seems to bear this out. But the eyes of William Long (right) seem light, likely gray or blue: not the Kid’s color according to those whose job it was to know.

Then, there’s the question of style. The photo of Long looks like it was taken within a few years of the New York portrait, a man still young, maybe even younger than the man on the left. But Long looks a mess. His clothes are rumpled and his hat is shapeless and askew. This wasn’t the way Harry liked to be depicted and in all photos of him I’ve ever seen, he’s immaculate. You could cut yourself on his creases.

Finally, according to his headstone, Long was born in 1860. That would make him seven years older than the historical Harry Longbaugh. Why lie about your age (and make yourself older) after you’ve joined the choir invisible and are well beyond the reach of the law?

Tags: etta place, harry longbaugh, John McCullough, Pinkerton Detectice Agency, sundance kid, william henry long