Ralph Leavitt

Who is Ralph Leavitt?

Ralph J. Leavitt was an early New York City automobile dealer charged with fraud who successfully avoided arrest over a period of months, both in New York City and in his native York Harbor, Maine, where he fled, and where he tied his speedboat to a buoy, threatening officers with a pistol. Leavitt's flight from justice was chronicled in the newspapers of the day.

Leavitt set off the mad dash after jumping bail in 1905 in Manhattan, where he was charged with fraud in connection with a trade-in at his Manhattan car dealership, the Leavitt Motor Power Exchange. In a chase-scene reported blow-by-blow in The New York Times, Leavitt was said to have barely escaped capture in New York, and then fled northward to Maine.

Surprised by detectives at his Maine home, Leavitt took to his boat in York Harbor, "defying officers and threatening to shoot the first man who dared to molest him," after which "he came ashore and disappeared," The New York Times reported. Earlier Leavitt had moored to a buoy, "prepared to keep away all hostile persons by use of his revolver."

In an era before cable news networks, the hijinks of the New York car dealer kept a nation riveted. A day after The New York Times informed its readers that the scofflaw Leavitt had taken to his launch to evade arrest, The Times announced in a front-page headline: "HOW LEAVITT HELD OUT AGAINST ALL COMERS." In smaller serif print, the newspaper of record noted that "Armed in His Launch, He Defied Beardsley and His Sleuths." And below that the Times noted that the "Auto Dealer Raised Such Serious Objections to Arrest That Detectives Returned to This City."