Lake Placid News

Extracts From

The Lake Placid News

1918 - 1940

December 10, 1918 -

WENDT - LIVERMORE WED

Miss Dorothy Wendt and Jesse Livermore were married recently. Both are known here, Mr. Livermore having purchased High Knolls on Signal hill for his fiancee last year. The groom known in Wall Street as the "boy plunger" married Miss Wendt the day after his divorce from the former Nettie Jordan. The new bride is a former show girl and singer and one of her bridal gifts was a magnificent home in upper New York city.

Livermore is credited with having run his latest string up to $8,000,000. He made his start in Boston. There after his first marriage, while working at a broker's office he plunged in the market and lost. His wife returned to her job as stenographer. With $3.21 he hit the cotton market and incredibly ran his string up to $10,000. Plunging heavier he rolled up hundreds of thousands, moved to New York and was rated in 1907 at $2,000,000. Two years later he was broke and was down to his last dollar, seven times in ten years. In 1915 he filed for bankruptcy but has since come back to great prosperity. Ten years ago Chester S. Jordan, brother of the first Mrs. Livermore, murdered his wife in a rage, cut her body into pieces which he hid in a trunk. Livermore was credited with spending thousands in legal fees in a vain effort to save Jordan from the electric chair.

February 5, 1926 -

JESSE LIVERMORE ACTIVE IN NEW RUBBER EXCHANGE

Jesse Livermore, whose summer home on Signal Hill is one of the show places of Lake Placid, has purchased a membership in the newly organized Cocoa and Rubber Exchange, Water street, New York City.

Financial experts believe that this move on the part of Mr. Livermore is a forerunner of considerable activity on his part in the world's rubber markets, whose operations heretofore have centered in England. Developments will be watched with interest.

June 3, 1927 -

BANDITS MAKE BIG HAUL IN L.I. HOME OF JESSE LIVERMORE

- Placid Summer Resident and Famed Wall Street Operator Victim of Polite Burglars - They Return Much of Jewelry

Polite bandits, who effected an entrance into the Kings Point L.I. home of Jesse L. Livermore early last Sunday Morning, made away with jewels and cash totaling nearly $100,000 in value and later at the tears of Mrs. Livermore and a guest, Mrs. Harry Aronhson, returned jewelry worth $70,000.
Mr. Livermore, who has long been known as one of the most spectacular traders in Wall Street, maintains a palatial summer home on Signal Hill, Lake Placid, where he usually spends part of each season.
The raid by the polite burglars is said to have possibly had some other purpose than the cash and jewels secured and to have been linked in some way with important papers which Mr. Livermore was thought to have in his home and which may have had some connection with his Wall Street operations. It is know that Mr. Livermore for some time has been shifting about his office personnel in an effort to avoid possible leaks of his speculative plans.
The jewels and money were taken at the point of revolvers from Mr. and Mrs. Livermore and their guests, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Aronhson of New York, about two hours after they had returned to the Livermore home and retired, specifically about four o'clock in the morning.
The Aronhson's room was the first point of call for the gentlemanly burglars. After taking what they wished there, they went to the Livermore bedroom where they made their biggest haul. Several articles of jewelry were returned to their owners when the women protested tearfully. The police are busy on the case.

May 24, 1929 -

Livermore's Ex-chauffeur Gets Prison

After pleading guilty in superior court in Bridgeport, Conn., to carrying a concealed weapon, Edward Kane, 32, former chauffeur of Jesse Livermore of New York and Lake Placid, was sentenced today to three and a half to five years in state prison.
Kane it is said, unknowingly, gave "Boston Billy" Monahan and Authur Barry information that helped them to rob the Livermore home on Long Island of thousands of dollars worth of jewelry a year ago. Both men are doing prison bits now for the robbery.

March 9, 1934 -

JESSE LIVERMORE IN BANKRUPTCY

Jesse L. Livermore, once known in Wall Street as "The Boy Plunger" and veteran of the trading pits, Monday declared himself bankrupt, according to an Associated Press dispatch.

Livermore was a summer resident of this resort for a number of years, owning a large home on Signal hill overlooking Lake Placid.

His petition filed in Federal court listed Liabilities of $2,259,212, and assets of only $184,900, including at its face value $150,000 insurance on his life.

Seats on exchanges, jewelry and personal property are included among the remaining assets of the man who had piled up tremendous fortunes, only to lose them, in his widespread operations in stocks and grains.

Unpaid Federal income taxes for 1930 and 1931, totaling $406,528 plus interest, and penalties, are included in the liabilities. There is also an overdue note for $142,520 to the Harriman National Bank & Trust Company, which is in the hands of a conservator.

Notes for $50,000 to E. R. Bradley, Lexington, Ky.; $75,000 to E. F. Hutton, New York broker, and a pending breach of promise suit for $200,000 brought by Charles Levine, airplane flight promoter, are among other scheduled liabilities.

December 6, 1935 -

WOUNDED LIVERMORE BOY BORN HERE

- Shot by Mother at California Home - Family Have Summer House Here - Mrs. Livermore Appeals to Friends to Send for Dr. d'Avignon to Treat Boy

Jesse Livermore, Jr., who according to authorities was shot by his mother early Friday after a drunken argument, was born in Lake Placid on September 13, 1919.

At the time of the boy's birth Mr. Livermore, who was then at the height of his Wall street, lived with his second wife, the former Wendt, at their summer residence on Signal Hill where they passed a number of seasons. In his enthusiasm over the birth of a son Mr. Livermore handed Dr. F. J. d'Avignon, the physician in charge a check for $5,000, and then told him to send his bill.

One of the show places in this resort, the house is now in Mrs. Livermore's name and has been advertised for taxes. Mrs. Livermore occupied the home for a short time following her marriage to Walter Longcope, former prohibition agent, and with her two sons spent the summer of 1934 here.

"It was an accident," the youth gasped as an opiate was administered soon after the shooting at Mrs. Livermore's home in Monetcito, California.

The mother, divorced second wife of the once famed market manipulator, is out on $6,000 bail.

Dr. Neville Usher, administering physician, quoted Mrs. Livermore, the former Dorothea Wendt of Brooklyn, as exclaiming:

"I've shot my boy!"

Undersheiriff Jack Ross said both mother and son were intoxicated when taken to the hospital.

The elder Livermore received word of the shooting at St. Louis. He left immediately for Santa Barbara by plane. He now makes his home in New York with his third wife, the former Harriet Metz Noble of Omaha.

Ross said he learned the mother upbraided the youth, while both were intoxicated, for his drinking, and asserted she would rather see him dead.


D. B. Neville, a guest, told officers the boy handed his mother a .22 caliber rifle with the challenge, "Well, here you are!"

Neville said he left the room for a moment. When he heard a shot he dashed back. He found the boy on the floor, the mother with the weapon in her hands.
The bullet penetrated the chest, coursed downward thru the liver and stopped near the spine. The shooting occurred about midnight.
A court fight between the Livermores over the custody of the boys is pending. There is another son, Paul 12.

The shooting was reported to Undersheriff Ross by Dr. Ussher, who had been called to the home.

The physician declared Mrs. Livermore "was too drunk to be responsible" at the time she crided, "I've shot my boy."

The senior Jesse Livermore amassed and lost several fortunes in the Chicago and New York Markets, chiefly in steel and wheat. He entered voluntary bankruptcy more than a year ago in New York and later was suspended from trading in the Chicago grain market.

In the bankruptcy proceeding it was disclosed he had set up $100,000 trust funds for each of his sons. Jesse, Jr., was described by Undersheriff Ross as "more or less incorrigible." The officer said the boy recently left the Dean school in Montecito and entered the Laguna Blanca school, an exclusive private institution.
Livermore's first wife was Miss Netit Jordan of Indianopolis. They were married in 1900 and divorced in 1917.

The former Miss Wendt married Livermore in December, 1918. A Reno divorce ended ths union in 1932. Mrs. Livermore then married Walter Longcope of New York, a former prohibition agent. A divorce last August ended this marriage and she resumed the Livermore name.

Dr. F. J. d'Vignon, Lake Placid physician, said Wednesday he had received no word from Mrs. Dorothea Wendt Longcope, asking him to speed to California to treat Jesse Livermore, Jr., in critical condition from a gun shot wound.

Mrs. Longcope, after a nervous breakdown at Santa Barbara was understood to have appealed thru friends to her divorced husband, Jesse Livermore, Sr., asking him to summon Dr. d'Avignon from Ladke Placid by airplane.

"I haven't heard from them, " Dr. d'Avignon said.

Asked if he would go if asked, he said, "Yes, I would if they asked me to and then could make the arrangements."

March 6, 1936 -

LIVERMORE YOUTH LEAVES HOSPITAL

Jesse Livermore, Jr., 16, son of the Wall Street Plunger, has gone to live with his mother who is accused of shooting him in a climax to a Thanksgiving day drinking argument.

He was released from a hospital last week. His mother, Mrs. Dorothea Longcope, took him to a new home she has established for him in Montecito. She faces preliminary hearing March 11 on a charge of assault with intent to murder.

Both the youth and his mother were former summer residents here.

November 29, 1940 -

LIVERMORE, FORMER RESIDENT, KILLS SELF

A radio news flash last night reported that Jesse Livermore, 62, committed suicide yesterday in New York city. Livermore was once known in financial circles as the "boy wonder" of Wall Street, where he made a fortune while still a comparatively young man.

Livermore at one time lived in Lake Placid, having a residence on Signal Hill. He married his second wife while living here and his son was born here. The son a few years ago was featured in news dispatches when his mother was acquitted of shooting him while they were living in California.