TOM LONG was a 19th cen¬tury celebrity. His name was known the length and breadth of New Zealand and his face was familiar to many. Newspapers commented his whereabouts on at regular intervals and, at times, his activities were reported on in great detail.
Long was a habitual criminal. His were not crimes of great moment - he didn't stage elaborate burglaries or carry out sophisticated frauds. His particular specialties were drunkenness, disorderly behav¬iour and vagrancy. He was rumoured to have been convict¬ed on more than 200 occasions.
He was frequently imprisoned for these offences, and others of a minor scale, and according to reports it was during one of these incarcerations that Long was induced to set out on his life of killing.
He was serving a term in the Auckland gaol in 1887 when he was promised remis¬sion of his sentence and a sum of money, if he would agree to act as the hangman.
The Irish-born Long, who claimed to have hanged several people in Australia, readily agreed to the terms and John Caffrey and Henry Penn became the first of Long's 13 New Zealand victims.
Caffrey and Penn had committed a bizarre murder on Great Barrier Island. The two men had hatched a plan to kid¬nap Elizabeth Seymour, a woman Caffrey had become besotted with, although she did not return his affections. They intended to sail away with her into the South Pacific, to live together on a trop¬ical island.
The crime was ludicrously botched from start to finish and Caffrey and Penn ended up shooting and killing Elizabeth Seymour's father, Edward Taylor.
They made their getaway in the ship they had planned to take to their tropical island, raising a pirate flag and heading for America. Their sailing skills matched their crimi¬nal aptitude and, after contrary winds, the pair were washed ashore in Australia, cap¬tured and returned to New Zealand for trial. They were found guilty and sentenced to hang.
Newspapers reported the double hang¬ing in graphic detail, noting the hangman, disguised behind a black crepe bandage and as yet not known to the general public, was "of middle height and of powerful build".
They also noted he was not at all ner¬vous, nor impatient - he went about his activities with a calm assuredness.
After this double hanging Long hanged another three murderers before perhaps his most famous case - the hanging of the baby murderer Williamina Dean, Minnie Dean, in Invercargill in August 1895.
Dean had been convicted of killing the baby Dorothy Carter and was suspected of having killed several other young children, virtually all the illegitimate children of unwed mothers.
Although there was widespread revul¬sion at Dean's activities, there was also gen¬eral disquiet at the execution of a woman.
Long claimed it made no difference to him who he hanged, man or woman, saying he had hanged women in Australia. He was rumoured to have sold the rope that hanged Minnie Dean for 5s a foot, and to have sold her clothes, traditionally the prop¬erty of the hangman.
During much of the 1890s Long was a swagger, spending a lot of time in the rural areas of the lower North Island, where he became a well-known, if not well-liked, fig¬ure.
Writing in the Manawatu Standard in 1940, GA Stephenson recalled his first meeting with the hangman took place when he was looking for workers to assist him on a road-making contract in Palmerston North.
A fit-looking Irishman came looking for a job and was accepted as part of the gang. The weather was bad and the men couldn't work, but they were kept entertained by the Irishman, who claimed to have been a sol¬dier in India and who seemed to have a bot¬tomless store of stories.
Before the weather cleared, however, a delivery boy recognised the storytelling soldier as Tom Long the hangman, and all the men refused to have him in their gang. He was sent back on the swag.
Stephenson met up with Long a couple of years later in Dannevirke, when he once more called looking for work. Long looked at Stephenson and said "I know you." Stephenson replied: "I know you too. Move on."
Long went to the nearest hotel and tried to drown his disappointment but the bar¬man also recognised him and refused to serve him. Long became fractious and was vigorously escorted from the premises and deposited in the street.
Always with an eye for the main chance, Long claimed his leg had been broken in the altercation and threatened to call in the police. The landlord of the hotel, wishing to avoid any trouble, agreed to house Long in a whare he owned across the street and to feed him until he was well again.
Long agreed to the terms, as long as some liquid refreshment was thrown in.
It didn't take long before the landlord saw through the ruse. Long was soon sent packing, supposed broken leg and all.
In September 1892 Long did break his leg, just above the ankle, "while skylarking at Eketahuna". The local chemist set his leg and Long was transferred to the Masterton Hospital to recuperate.
The ratepayers of Masterton did not like having to pay to house the hangman and were frustrated at his actions once he was well.
He was discharged from the hospital in early November and provided with £3 to leave town. He promptly spent the money on drink and then asked the local police¬man for the fare to Eketahuna.
Sergeant McArdle, obviously thinking it was money well spent, gave him the money, but discovered him shortly afterwards in a hotel with a large glass of beer in front of him. He was charged with being drunk and disorderly and with being a vagrant.
Long objected to the charges, and said the sergeant had only said he was an "out-and-out bad character" because he was crip¬pled.
McArdle responded that Long was a "very wild man and gave a good deal of trouble".
Long was convicted again and sentenced to another term of imprisonment
It wasn't just the police who had little time for the hangman. He was unpopular among almost all the community and at times came close to meeting the traditional fate of hangmen - being hanged.
Long was reported to have cheated death by hanging at least twice, once in Rangitikei and again in Wairarapa.
A team of footballers was travelling in a train from Taihape, exuberant at having won their match and raucous after their vic¬tory celebrations. An Irishman joined in them. As he became more familiar with his fellow passengers he loosened his tongue and began to tell them his story, in particu¬lar the story of his part in the Minnie Dean story.
The footballers were not amused by the tales of Long and one of the players sug¬gested to his fellows they should hang him, then and there on the train. One removed a rope he had been using to hold up his trousers, and Long quickly found himself hanging from the hat rack. Fortunately for him, the commotion raised the notice of the guard who managed to rescue the dangling hangman.
A remarkably similar event took place at the Tauherenikau Hotel, the renowned Tin Hut, just north of Featherston. Long had been at the races on the nearby course, and had lost a lot of money. He decided he could recoup his losses by auctioning off Minnie Dean's boots.
A group of patrons of the hotel were out¬raged by Long's actions and they too had a noose around the neck of the hangman. He was hanging from a branch of a blue gum tree before once more being rescued, this time by the publican Kenny McKenzie.
The last years of the 19th century were busy for the hangman, his services being called upon twice in 1897 and three times in 1898.
For these hangings he was reputedly paid £25. The first £2 was paid at the time, the remainder of the fee being sent to the police station at Long's current location, where it was reportedly used to pay his fines until it ran out.
Long's last hanging was that of James Ellis, the Te Awaiti murder¬er. Ellis, also known as John McKenzie, had shot and killed Leonard Collinson on the remote Te Awaiti Station on the east coast of Wairarapa.
A long search ranged over most of Wairarapa and into rural Hawke's Bay before Ellis was captured near Waipawa. He was tried, found guilty and hanged in Wellington's The Terrace gaol in early 1905.
By this stage the hangman was aged. Described in his earlier days as a powerful young man, he was now weak and unable to do much work. Stephenson recalled meet¬ing him working in a firewood gang around this time. His boss said he wasn't much of a worker but he was good to have in the gang as he kept his fellow workers amused with his tales.
Long, the Irish-born hangman to the nation of New Zealand, met his own death in December 1908. He was working in a bush-felling gang at Kuangaroa, near Wanganui, when a falling tree hit him. An inquest decided his death was accidental.
But those who knew the hangman and knew his reputation were sceptical. A rumour circulated the death was actually planned. According to the rumour, a row of trees was cut nearly through then left stand¬ing. Then, when Long was working under¬neath them, they were deliberately felled so they would fall on him and kill him.
Whether the rumour was correct or not, it would certainly have been a more roman¬tic death for the man who had been the country's biggest killer, who was for 20 years New Zealand's official executioner, Tom Long.