June 4th is Tom Longboat Day
1886- 1949
An amazing long distance runner, Tom quickly became a household name as famous as Wayne Gretzky in his time. Tom Longboat Day is celebrated each June 4, but his memory deserves to be honoured every day.
Calculate, how old Tom was when he passed away?
How old would he be today?
Thomas Charles Longboat
Thomas Charles Longboat was an Onondaga distance runner from the Six Nations Reserve near Brantford, Ontario and, for much of his career, the dominant long-distance runner. Tom went everywhere on foot, and his family often didn’t believe his tales of how far and fast he had run—until he beat his brother to Hamilton, some 20 miles distant, even though his brother had had a head start and driven a horse and buggy!
An extraordinary runner, Tom was a world champion long-distance runner. In 1907, he won the Boston Marathon (a distance of approximately 40 kilometres) in record time, leaving his closest competitor four-fifths of a kilometre behind. His status as a racing celebrity was solidified in 1909, when he won the world professional marathon championships at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Look carefully at the title of the newspaper article, what do you notice? In your opinion, is that a fair thing to say?
Mohawk Institute Residential School
Born in 1887 on the Six Nations Reserve, near Brantford, Ont., Longboat was an Onondaga whose native name, Cogwagee, meant Everything. While still a young teenager, he ran away from the Mohawk Institute Residential School (twice) and eventually lived with his uncle and did odd jobs.
A Face of War
Although Tom's  racing career had a bright future in 1916 he set aside his own future for Canada’s and enlisted in the Armed Services. He joined the 107th Pioneer Battalion and became a dispatch carrier, a highly dangerous job. Tom used his athletic ability to run messages from one military post to another. He was known as the "bulldog of Britannia" and was a soldier in the Canadian Expeditionary Force during the First World War. After the First World War, Tom returned to service for the Second World War as a member of the Veterans Guard. He was stationed at a military camp near Brantford, Ontario. Interestingly enough, Tom was wounded twice and once was wrongly reported killed.