INLAWS

INLAWS & OUTLAWS

The Family Origins of Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and Etta Place

by Kerry Ross Boren & Lisa Lee Boren

ROBERT LEROY PARKER, a.k.a. Butch Cassidy

During the ninth and tenth centuries the Vikings streamed out of Scandinavia in droves, raiding and colonizing wherever they went. In the north of France, Rollo the Ganger led Horse invaders in search of new lands to colonize. Rollo was called the AGanger (Long-Legs) because it is said that his legs were so long that when he sat his horse his feet dragged the ground.¹

Rollo's son Rogawald not only demanded land from the French king, Charles the Simple, but also the king's daughter, Giselle, in marriage. At the place where they met to forge an alliance, the Norsemen built a castle, and the Norse who settled that portion of France were called Normans (i.e. Northmen), and the land was called Normandy.

Rollow was a member of the Norwegian clan Möre. In fact, the Möres owned the castle that was built at the treaty site in 912 A.D. This branch of the clan Möre changed their name to St. Clair, after that of a saintly martyr who lived as a hermit near a holy well on the bank of the River Epte, north of Paris, and who had been decapitated by a Acruel woman whom he had rebuked.

William the Conqueror, himself a descendant of Rollo, invaded and conquered England with the aid of his fellow Normans. Nine members of the St. Clair family accompanied the Conqueror and were present at the Battle of Hastings, for which service they were rewarded with extensive grants of land in England. They anglicized the spelling of their name from St. Clair to Sinclair. One of these was Walderne Sinclair who married Margaret, daughter of Richard, Duke of Normandy, and established the Sinclair family in Scotland.²

One branch of Rollo's family retained the name Möre and came to England with the Conqueror and their Sinclair cousins. Very early the Möres were appointed AKeepers of the King's Forest, and given the title AMöre-leigh (Möre of the King's Forest) which became the English surname AMorley Inasmuch as the keeper of the forest the duties of keeping the king's parks, the Morleys also took the surname AParker. It was their duty to keep the forests and parks stocked with deer and other wild game for the king's hunting pleasure.

Though the Morleys and Parkers were the same family, the name was used interchangeably. In time, Morley also became a title and the Parkers became the Lords of Morley. They became prominent and powerful, holding several lordships through careful marriages, and in addition became hereditary Archbishops of Canterbury.

Edward Parker, tenth Baron Morley (1555-1618), was a former recusant who spent some time abroad before succeeding to the barony in 1577. He renounced his hereditary right to the office of Lord Marshal of Ireland in return for the right to print the book about how to instruct children in the oath of allegiance. His son William Parker (1575-1622) became fourth Baron Mounteagle through his mother Elizabeth Stanley,⁴ as well as eleventh Lord Morley. In 1605 Lord William Parker was the recipient of the mysterious letter betraying the Gunpowder Plot (a plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth 1). Of this same family was Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury.

Butch Cassidy descended from the family of Henry Parker, Tudor Archbishop of Canterbury, allied to the ancient house of Morley, chief Aparkers to the monarchs of England since King Edward 1. But the family was not without scandalous progeny.

Butch's immediate ancestor, AHarry Parker, alias Saunder Parker, was a personal servant of Sir Francis Bryan,⁵ who was a diplomat, statesman, soldier and courtier at the court of King Henry VIII. During Bryan's ambassadorship to France during the 1540's, Henry Parker served dutifully as his courier, delivering diplomatic despatches from Bryan at the French court of King Francois 1 to the English court of Henry VIII. Harry Parker carried the disappointing despatches to Henry VIII when the Pope refused his divorce from Catherine of Aragon.⁶

In January 1546, Harry Parker, Aof Kingston, Surrey, murdered one Thomas Sexton of Kingston following a dispute. Sir Francis Bryan, his master, who ever had Athe king's ear, used his influence to secure a pardon for his servant on 1 February 1546.⁷ Bryan afterward rewarded Harry's service with lands near the village of Habersham, in Essex, where the family resided for the next 250 years.

Harry Parker's descendant, John Parker, who was born in Habersham about 1758, was the first of this branch of the family to settle in Lancashire. He married Jenny Schofield, of an old Lancashire family, who brought to the marriage a dowry of lands in the village of Burnley, where they took up residence.

Thomas Parker, son of John and Jenny, was born at Burnley about 1794. Under England's ancient law of primogeniture, Thomas had to be content with a younger son's meager portion of his father's estate, and was soon thrown into abject poverty.

This was the age of the Industrial Revolution, when human labor was swiftly being replaced by mechanization and jobs were scarce. Poverty, pollution and homelessness were rampant and urchins begged pittance in the streets. Great reformers like Joseph Priestley and Robert Owen tried social experiments to fill the bellies of the poor, while religious reformers filled their minds with hellfire and damnation, for poverty was a sin.

On 28 November 1819, in the midst of his poverty, Thomas Parker married 21 year-old Martha Pollard, daughter of Robert Pollard and Martha Hardman. Their first child, whom they named Robert in honor of his maternal grandfather, was born at Burnley on 19 March 1820, a telling four months after the marriage.

As the eldest son, Robert stood to inherit his father's estate, except that his father had none. Thomas had been granted charitable domain for a few years on the family estate at Burnley, but eventually he was urged to enterprise and move away. He moved his wife and young son to North London about 1823 where he invested in a shaky business venture with his cousin, John Dickens.

John Dickens was born in 1785. In 1809 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Charles Barrow. They became the parents of eight children, among them Charles Dickens, born 7 February 1812, who was destined to became one of England's greatest authors.

John Dickens was a clerk in the Navy Pay Office in Portsmouth. In 1814 he was transferred to Somerset House in London, and in 1817 he moved his family to Chatham and worked in the naval dockyard. Transferred back to the London office, he moved his family to Camden Town in 1822.

He was continually living beyond his means. He was said by his famous son to be AA govial opportunist with no money sense. In 1823 Dickens entered into a business venture with Thomas Parker that failed. In February 1824 both men were arrested and thrown into debtor's prison at Marshalsea in Southwark.

Twelve year-old Charles Dickens was pulled from school and sent to work at Warren's Blacking House, a shoe-dye factory, where he earned six shillings a week to help support his family. He lived alone, ashamed and frightened, in a lodging house in North London. Dickens later wrote that the period of his father's imprisonment was the most terrible time in his life and he wondered Ahow I could have been so easily cast away at such an age.

If the experience was bad for Charles Dickens at age twelve, it was even worse for his distant cousin, Robert Parker, who was only four when his father was imprisoned. John Dickens was released from his confinement in March, after serving only a month, having fortuitously come into an inheritance. For Thomas Parker it took considerably longer. His wife and son were left temporarily homeless on the dirty, unforgiving streets of North London.

Robert Parker spent his early youth on the streets of North London and Manchester as an urchin, begging farthings to help his starving mother and to pay his father's debt. What he could not beg he learned to steal, and this quite adeptly. So adept was he, indeed, that his cousin Charles Dickens used him - - so says Parker family tradition - - as the model for Oliver Twist. Dickens often used persons from his own experiences as models for his characters. He depicted his father in the character of Wilkins Micawber in David Copperfield, and he caricatured his mother (with whom he remained estranged until her death in 1863) as Mrs. Nickelby.

Charles Dickens became a household icon to the Parkers. He was a cousin, several times removed, by descent from the Schofield family. Robert Parker brought autographed copies of Oliver Twist and David Copperfield to Utah in 1856, and he raised his children and grand-children with an appreciation of the Dickens classics. ADickens was read to us as religiously as [was] the Book of Mormon in my grandfather's home, Butch's sister Lula Parker Betenson told me.

Robert's grandson and namesake read Dickens voraciously. ABob [she seldom called him Butch] used to spend a lot of time in my father's library on the old ranch in Brown's Park, Josie Bassett Morris once informed me. He would lean back on two legs of his chair, kick his feet up on the wood stove, and read all my father's books. He especially liked Dickens and the old histories of Scotland. He used to boast, with a big grin on his broad face, that the Scottish heroes were his mother's people, and that Dickens was a relative of his father.⁸

Etta Place, whom Butch married, was also an avid Dickens fan and could recite entire passages of his works by heart.⁹ In New York City, near the fin de siècle, Butch, Sundance and Etta attended a theatrical production of Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

Charles Dickens visited America in 1842. He brought back enthusiastic tales of the great Mormon city of Nauvoo in Illinois. He telegraphed his enthusiasm to Robert Parker who derided he should investigate the new religion further. Robert's cousins, the Schofields, had already converted, but it would take Dickens' enthusiasm to stimulate his own conversion. He was baptized on the day of his wedding.

Robert Parker married 24 year-old Ann Hartley on 25 May 1843. She was the daughter of William Hartley and Alice Ashworth of Colne.¹⁰ Wanting to be near a branch of the Mormon Church, they moved almost immediately to Accrington, in Lancaster, where their first child, Maximilian, was born on 8 June 1844. Five of their nine children would be born in Accrington between 1844 and 1852. A daughter, Emily, born in 1852, died shortly after birth.

In 1853 Robert was called to be President of the Preston Mission of the Church in Lancashire. He moved his growing family there the same year. He had come a long way since his indigent youth. For some years he had been a master weaver in the woolen mills at Manchester. He worked side-by-side with his cousin, Thomas Schofield,¹¹ who was a master dyer at the mills. Thomas Schofield became President of the Tottingham Mission of the Church in Lancashire.

Thomas Parker died in 1854, leaving a small inheritance to his son Robert, enough to finance his emigration to America with his family, to join the main body of the Church in Utah. In 1855 he booked passage for himself, his wife Ann, and five children abroad the steamer packet Enoch Train bound for New York. They were accompanied by Thomas Schofield.

They were seen off at the Liverpool docks by Charles Dickens, who gave both Robert Parker and Thomas Schofield signed copies of his books. He scribbled some noted as he watched them board the Enoch Train. He later wrote about it, expressing at once his admiration and perplexity of these Mormons who sailed away into the unknown vastness of an uncertain future, carrying their few worldly possessions on their backs, guided only by faith and promises.¹²

Robert Parker and family, with his cousin Thomas Schofield, arrived at New York and went by train to Iowa. They spent the winter building two-wheeled handcarts and preparing for the 1300-mile trek to Utah. In June 1856 they joined the Daniel MacArthur handcart company, which nearly perished in the heavy snows of the Rocky Mountains. Robert's 6 year-old son Arthur was inadvertently abandoned along the trail and rescued in the nick of time to save him from dying of exposure, and Robert himself nearly died from exhaustion and exposure near the Green River in Wyoming. His son Maximilian, then aged twelve, and cousin Thomas Schofield, loaded him onto a handcart and pulled him through heavy snows to Fort Bridger, where he recuperated.

In Utah, Robert Parker settled briefly to Centerville, a few miles north of Salt Lake City, but the approach of Johnston's Army - - federal troops sent to put down a suspected Mormon rebellion - - sent the Mormon population fleeing to the south for refuge. The Parkers settled near the AIndian Farm at Spanish Fork, where they lived out of their wagon while Robert briefly taught school to provide sustenance for his family. Ann was pregnant with their seventh child and she was in a weakened condition due to their privations.

When Thomas Schofield organized the Beaver Wollen Mills in the two of Beaver in the central part of the Territory, he brought Robert Parker there to assist in the construction and organization of the mills. The cooperative included, besides Parker and Schofield, a number of other textile workers, recent converts from Lancashire, including Ann Parker's uncle, John Ashworth, and his son William.¹³

The new opportunity was a salvation for Robert Parker's needy family, but their privations had taken a toll. Ann gave birth to a son on 12 January 1858, not long after their arrival at Beaver. They named him Robert in honor of his father, but he was weak at birth and died a little more than a year later.

Robert Parker continued to live at Beaver for a number of years. He entered into the doctrine of plural wives (polygamy) and as a result was sought after by federal marshals. He moved to the more remote southern community at Washington, Utah, but was eventually arrested. Both Robert Parker and Thomas Schofield served terms in the territorial prison for polygamy. Robert Parker died at his home at Washington, Utah, on 24 February 1901.¹⁴

Robert Parker's eldest son, Maximilian, was only twelve years old when he crossed the plains with his family. In his teens he worked as a textile apprentice in the Beaver Wollen Mills, but he hated the drudgery of the work and ran away. He eventually took a job carrying the mail by horseback from beaver south to Panguitch.

When he turned twenty-one, AMaxy Parker married Ann Gillies on her 19^th birthday, 12 July 1865. Ann Campbell Gillies was the daughter of Robert Gillies, a carpenter and cabinet maker, by his wife Jane Sinclair. Annie was born 12 July 1846 at New Castle, Northumberland, England.¹⁵ Maxy and Ann Parker settled on a ranch at North Creek, some four or five miles north of Beaver. Here, in the early morning hours of Friday, the 13^th day of April, in the midst of an Indian attack led by Chief Sanpitch of the Utes, Annie gave birth to their first child. They named him Robert Leroy Parker in honor of his grandfather. History remembers him best as the outlaw Butch Cassidy.

HARRY ALONZO LONGABAUGH, a.k.a. the Sundance Kid

The Longabaugh family (Longbaugh, Linebaugh, Leinbach, etc.) Originated near Hartz Mountain, Germany. The Leinbachs were traditional toll-keepers on the alpine route between Germany (then comprised of independent states) and Prussia (modern Austria) during the Austro-Prussian Wars. At least one member of the Leinbach family was burgermeister of Hochstadt, Germany, during the mid-sixteenth century.

The first of the name in America was Johannes Leinbach, son of Johannes and Anna Elizabeth (Pleiss or Place) Leinbach, born 13 February 1712 in Hochstadt, Germany. Johannes married, on 12 August 1735, at Oley Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania, Catherine Riehm (Ream).¹⁶ She was born February 1714 at Lame, Alsace, daughter of Johann Eberhard Riehm and Elizabeth Schwab, the founders of Reamstown, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.¹⁷ The wife of Thomas Alva Edison, famous inventor, was a member of this family.

Johannes Leinbach lived next neighbor to Squire and Sarah (Morgan) Boone, parents of the great frontiersman Daniel Boone, in Berks County, Pennsylvania, until the Boones migrated to North Carolina circa 1749. Several members of the Leinbach family accompanied the Boones, and joined the Moravian settlement in Rowan County, North Carolina.

The founder of the Leinbach family Montgomery County, Pennsylvania (birthplace of the Sundance Kid), appears to have been Abraham Leinbach who, in 1748, came with Benjamin Crocker, a nephew of Benjamin Franklin, and joined the roll of Henry Antes' Moravian School. This Abraham was reportedly the son of AJohn, of Oley, i.e. Johannes Leinbach and Catherine Riehm.

Heinrich AHenry Leinbach, son of Abraham, was born 17 July 1774, and married Anne Harvie, who was the daughter of L.A. Harvie and Anne Ingrahams Sours, a full-blood Cherokee Indian. It is believed by some researchers that this Henry and Anne Leinbach were the ancestors of Harry Longabaugh, because he claimed to have been part Cherokee.¹⁸ This Harvie family is also said to have been the ancestors of Harvey Logan, alias Kid Curry, who is known to have been part Cherokee. Both Harvey Logan and Harry Longabaugh claimed kinship as cousins.

Conrad Langenbach indentured himself as apprentice to one John Hunter of Coventry Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania, to work for five years of purchase his freedom for ,28 2p. Both Conrad and his brother Balsar served at least two months in the militia of Northampton County, Pennsylvania, and together with Abraham Leinbach they fought at Valley Forge under the command of George Washington.

In 1781 Conrad married a woman named Catherina and settled in New Hanover, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. They had at least seven children between 1782 and 1800. Their youngest son, Jonas Leinbach, was born in Montgomery County circa 1797-8. He was among the first of the family to adopt the spelling Longabaugh.

Jonas Longabaugh married Christiana Hillbert on 6 December 1821. She was born 30 January 1800, a daughter of Michael and Elizabeth Hillbert of Montgomery County. Christiana died of uterine cancer on 12 September 1852. Jonas lived early at Schuylkill Township, Chester County, where he was a farmer, and later in Upper Providence Township, Montgomery County, where he acquired substantial property.

Jonas and Christiana became the parents of six children: Josiah; Nathaniel H.; Michael; Mary E.; Margaret; and an Ainfant stillborn.

Nathaniel H. Longabaugh was born 1824 and married Asenath Wood about 1857; she died in July 1908. Nathaniel was a teacher in Chester County, and a physician and hotel proprietor in Montgomery County. He died in February 1909 in Camden, New Jersey.

Michael Longabaugh was born 11 November 1825 in Zeiglersville, Pennsylvania. He married Elizabeth Kane (1838-1921). Michael was, like his brother Nathaniel, a teacher in Chester County and a farmer and a boat captain on the Schuylkill Canal in Montgomery County. He was a grist mill operator and ran a feed store at Church and Main Streets, Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. Michael died 18 April 1908 in Upper Providence, and is buried near his wife in Morris Cemetery, Phoenixville.

Mary E. Longabaugh was born 31 January 1831. She married first to Patrick O'Donnell of Pittsburgh, which ended in divorce. She married secondly to Daniel Weikel. Mary died 16 February 1857 and is buried near her parents in St. Luke's Cemetery in Trappe, Pennsylvania. Her first husband, Pat O'Donnell, who was born in Ireland, was an early investor in the Pittsburgh Land and Cattle Company. By 1877 he was residing near Moab, Utah, and in 1884 became general manager of the Pittsburgh Company, where young Harry Longabaugh, his nephew, worked as a ranch hand.

Margaret Longabaugh married John Higgins.

Jonas Longabaugh owned at least three valuable properties. Certain property on Railroad Street in Phoenixville was deeded to his daughter, Mrs. Margaret Higgins, on 1 November 1849. An adjacent property was deeded to his other daughter, Mrs. Mary O'Donnell, on this same date. Additionally, he owned property at the intersection of Egypt Road and present Route 29 in Mont Claire in 1860.¹⁹ He owned a farm in Chester County and probably additional holdings elsewhere. He died 28 June 1864 in Upper Providence and is buried near his wife in St. Luke's Reformed Church Cemetery, Trappe.

Josiah Longabaugh, eldest child of Jonas and Christiana, was born 14 June 1822 (less than seven months after their marriage). He moved with the family to Upper Providence sometime after 1850. He returned to Chester County to marry his childhood sweetheart, Ann G. A Annie Place. The marriage took place in Phoenixville on 11 August 1855, the Rev. J.S. Ermentrout presiding. In this bustling steel town they raised a family of three sons and two daughters.

Ann G. Place was born at Phoenixville on 27 July 1828, a daughter of Henry AHarry Place and Rachel Justin. Henry Place was born 29 July 1796, a son of Jacob Place and Mary Whestler. He had married Rachel Justin on 1 October 1818, and they became the parents of eight children, of whom Annie was the sixth.

The Place family originated in America with Enoch Place, the immigrant, who transplanted from England (though the family is found in Germany as Pleiss) to Rhode Island. His descendants branched out throughout New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania.

Henry Place was one of Phoenixville's most prominent citizens. He was elected deacon of the Phoenixville Baptist Church in 1832 and was later a trustee. He was also a member of the Central Union Association and was a personal acquaintance of Governor Francis R. Shunk, who maintained his office as governor of Pennsylvania from 1845 until his death in 1848.

Josiah and Annie Longabaugh became the parents of five children: Elwood P. Longabaugh; Samanna Longabaugh; Emma T. Longabaugh; Harvey S. Longabaugh; and Harry A. Longabaugh. Between the births of Emma and Harvey, Josiah Longabaugh enlisted in the Pennsylvania State Militia and fought in the Civil War. When he returned home in 1863 at the age of 41, he was suffering from physical problems. In 1872 he had his photo taken with his youngest son, four year-old Harry. The photo shows a man of fifty, somewhat solemn, with a Lincolnesque beard and receding hairline. His son Harry shows no indication of the type of character he was to become in later years.

Josiah Longabaugh died of heart disease on 9 August 1893 at the age of 71. He was preceded in death by his wife Annie Place Longabaugh who died of heart disease on 18 May 1887 in her 60^th year of age. Both are buried in the Morris Cemetery in Phoenixville, in the Hallman family plot. Their five children:

Elwood Place Longabaugh was born 21 June 1858 in Mont Clare, Pennsylvania. On 27 June 1882 he sailed on the whaling ship Mary & Helen to San Francisco, California, where he worked in later years at the La Guna Honda Home for Sailors. He died in the hospital at the home of a coronary and bronchial pneumonia on 11 May 1930 and is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in San Fancisco.

Samanna Longabaugh was born 22 April 1860 in Phoenixville where she married Oliver F. Hallman in 1878. Oliver Hallman was born 20 February 1856 in Phoenixville to Augustus and Mary (Conklin) Hallman; he died 24 November 1941 in Upland, Pennsylvania. Samanna died in 1920 at her home on Walnut Street in Mont Clare. They had five children.

Emma T. Longabaugh was born about 1862 in Zeiglersville, Pennsylvania. She died unmarried on 23 January 1933 in Upper Providence, and is buried next to her parents in the Morris Cemetery, Phoenixville. She was co-owner of a dress shop and millinery called McCandless and Longabaugh (the spelling she preferred) on Poplar Street in Philadelphia.

Harvey Sylvester Longabaugh (he also preferred this spelling) was born 19 May 1865 in Upper Providence. He married Katherine Gercke in 1886-7; she was born 1 October 1865. They had three children: Harvey Sylvester, William Henry, and Florence A. Longabaugh. Harvey never remained long in one place, living at various times in Phoenixville, Flourtown, Mont Clare, Haycock, Providence, Skip-pack, and Zeiglersville, Pennsylvania, and at Atlantic City and Belleville, New Jersey. He never owned a home. Harvey died 6/7 January 1937 in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania. Katherine died in 1949 in Ardsley, Pennsylvania. Both are buried in Zion Cemetery at Flourtown. Harvey worked as a farmer, merchant, carpenter and iron-worker.

Harry Alonzo Longabaugh was born 19 April 1868 in Phoenixville, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania (though some claim his birthplace as Port Providence, Upper Providence Township). Harry left home on 20 August 1882 for the West. He emerged thereafter on the pages of western history as the Sundance Kid.

Laura Etta Capel, a.k.a. Etta Place

AI was born near Dublin, Ireland, 100 years after the American Declaration of Independence, the same year that the great Centennial Exposition was held in Philadelphia, Pa. To be exact as to the date, it was on November 25, 1876. I was christened Beatrice Desmond...²⁰

Thus begins Etta Place's own account of her life, written under a pseudonym in 1928 when she was fifty-two. Her autobiography, like her very life itself, is riddled with subterfuge and blind trails, much like an English Abaffle. She was not christened ABeatrice Desmond, though it was her grandmother's name. She herself qualifies the opening statement of her life story by adding:

AAlthough I am thus explicit, I have little fear that the public will be able to point the finger of scorn at my relatives for having such a member of the family as myself. Desmond is a common family-name in the south of Ireland and near may mean next door or miles away, though not more than thirty miles. So far as I know, outside of my own relatives, there is only one man in the world who knows the exact place of my birth and some of my immediate relatives. He is a British police official, and he, good soul that he is, will not tell.²¹

There was good reason for Etta to hide her true origins, even in her autobiography, for she was the scion of one of England's most noble families, the Capels, Earls of Essex. The family seat was at the ancient estate of Cassiobury, in Westhertfordshire.

Cassiobury dated from before the seventh century A.D. when it was an abbey held by monks. The historian John Britton observed that A...from the time of the founding of the Abbey of St. Albans until after the Norman Conquest we have no notice of this place; but it is not improbable that both before and after that event either the successive abbots or some of their officers occasionally resided at Cassiobury.²² Cassiobury was also listed in the Domesday Book.

In 1546, after the dissolution of the monasteries, and not long before his death. King Henry VIII granted the manor of ACassio to Sir Richard Morison.²³ Soon after Sir Richard had taken possession, he began building A...a fair and large house, situated upon a dry hill, not far from a pleasant river in a fair park, and had prepared materials for the finishing thereof, but before the same could be half built, he was forced to fly beyond the sea.²⁴

His son, Sir Charles Morison, completed the building of the house. It was constructed of brick, in the style of the day. It sported bay windows, acute gables, and the characteristic high chimneys of the Tudor of Elizabethan style.

The Inventory of Sir Charles Morison's property taken on 7 December 1599 shows 56 rooms and out-buildings at Cassiobury. They included a Long Gallery, bedchambers for Sir Charles and his wife, his mother, his son, his sister and his servants. Beds also appeared in outbuildings such as the brewhouse, the dairy and the stables. Eight rooms contained pictures, thirty-four in all, plus several maps and Aa great presse for writings in the closet in Sir Charles' room.

Between 1674 and 1680 the Tudor house was extensively rebuilt by Hugh May, architect to King Charles II, for Arthur Capel, first Earl of Essex (of the seventh creation), grandson and heir of Sir Charles Morison. Hugh May was, in fact, a kinsman of Essex, who at one point wanted Essex to Agive Ned May a company in yr Army in Ireland; the Earl of Essex was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

Hugh May coupled with the great Peter Lely to construct another house in Ireland for the Earl of Essex. The Earl possessed estates on the River Lee in County Cork, land wrested from the Fitzgeralds, Earls of Desmond, in the perpetual Irish wars. Castle Desmond, which clung to a cliff-top overlooking the Lee, was virtually destroyed in the wars, only a stone tower remaining. The manor house, also called Castle Desmond, was constructed nearby, utilizing many of the stones from the original castle. The manor house was constructed in the form of a AT and was one of the grandest structures in the south of Ireland.

Arthur Capel, first Earl of Essex, was arrested at Cassiobury in 1683 for his part in the Rye House Plot. Shortley after the beginning of Lord Russell's trial on 13 July 1683 it was whispered in court (and the news was made use of to injure Russell) that Essex had cut his throat in the Tower of London. It was never officially determined whether it was suicide or murder. He was buried at Watford in Hertfordshire.²⁵

Only two of Arthur Capel's children survived to adulthood, Algernon and Anne. Algernon Capel succeeded as second Earl of Essex and married Mary Bentinck, eldest daughter of William Bentinck, first Earl of Portland, by whom he was related by marriage to the Fitzgeralds (Desmond) of Ireland.

William Capel (1679-1743), third Earl of Essex, was eldest son and heir of Algernon. He was Gentleman of the Bedchamber of King George II from 1718. In 1725 he was made a knight of St. Andrew and in 1727 he was constituted Lord Lieutenant of Hertfordshire. In 1731 he was appointed ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the King of Sardinia at Turin, Italy, an office he discharged until 1736. He was keeper of St. James and Hyde Parks and, in 1739, captain yeoman of the guard, as well as being a member of the privy council and knight companion of the Garter. He died 8 January 1743 and was buried at Watford.

William Anne Capel (1732-1799) succeeded his father as fourth Earl of Essex at the age of eleven. He was, like his father, one of the Gentlemen of the Bedchamber to George II and, in keeping with family tradition, was Lord Lieutenant of Hertfordshire.

When his father died in 1799, George Capel (1757-1839) became fifth-Earl of Essex at the age of 42. He inherited, in addition to the peerage, the family estates in Essex and Hertfordshire, including Rayne Hall, Cassiobury, Wickham Hall, and Hadham Hall, among others, as well as the estates of his grandmother, the Countess of Coningsby. He also fell heir to the family estates in Ireland. He was Lord Lieutenant of Hertfordshire as well as recorded and High Steward of Leominster, but he resigned these offices after selling much of his property in Hertfordshire to Richard Arkwright.

George Capel then devoted his money and energies to the redecorating and refurbishing of Cassiobury, where he maintained his residence. He took an active interest in the arts and became patron of many period artists, including Gainsborough, Reynolds and others. The luxurious suites of rooms which resulted from having Cassiobury remodeled by the fashionable architect James Wyatt were lavishly decorated with paintings and sculpture.

The gardens were remodeled by Humphry Repton and the Earl could walk with his guests on smooth lawns bordered with shrubs or along walks bordered by tall trees, many of which had been planted by the first Earl, some of them having been gifts of Louis XV of France. In other parts of the grounds visitors could become lost on the Adevious paths or wander in the Chinese Garden. In 1805, soon after Wyatt's rebuilding, the Earl began a visitors' book. For more than a century thereafter the book would be signed by some of the most famous persons of the era: Queen Adelaide; Queen Victoria; Winston Churchill; Stephen Crane; dukes, earls, prime ministers, European royalty, and many more.

George Capel Coningsby (he adopted his grandmother's name upon inheriting the estate), Viscount Malden and fifth Earl of Essex grew old without an heir. The marriage between George and his first wife, Sarah Bazet, had not been a happy one and they had been estranged for some time when she died on 16 January 1838. Within three months, on 14 April 1838, he remarried Aat age 80 years, 5 months, and 1 day, in the hopes of producing an heir before his death.

His second wife was the attractive Catherine AKitty Stephens, daughter of Edward Stephens of Leadwell, Oxfordshire. They were married by special license at the Earl's house in Bel grave Square, London, and spent their honeymoon at Cassiobury. Kitty was 44 and a famous actress and singer, having made her first appearance in 1813, at the age of 19, at Covent Garden. She became the subject of some scandal because of the marriage.

His Lordship lived barely a year beyond his marriage and died at Cassiobury on 23 April 1839. The peerage passed by right of title and possession to the Earl's only heir apparent, his nephew, Arthur Algernon Capel, his brother's son, who succeeded him as the sixth Earl of Essex.

Arthur Algernon Capel was eldest son of John Thomas Capel by his wife Lady Caroline Paget, eldest daughter of Henry, first Earl of Uxbridge, and sister of the Marquis of Englesey. Arthur had a lively mind and was interested in agriculture, experimental chemistry (alchemy), mechanics and watercolor painting. He was first president of the West Hertfordshire Agricultural Society, and proposed the first exhibition of the Watford and Leavesden Horticultural Society which was held in the gardens at Cassiobury in August 1864. He was Lay Rector of the Parish and president of the Watford and Bushey Volunteer Fire Brigade. Due to ill health he had to decline the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland offered him by Sir Robert Peel.

In 1846 Cassiobury was rented for three years by Queen Adelaide, widow of William IV. Six weeks later, Queen Victoria arrived to visit her aunt Adelaide; she had previously visited as a young girl with her mother.

In the 1841 census the Earl, his wife, three sons and a daughter were in residence at Cassiobury, supported by seven men and sixteen women living in the house as servants. Many more estate workers lived on or off the estate.

In the 1851 census the Earl was described as Apeer and occupier of 600 acres of arable land employing thereon about 40 labourers. At the house he had four men and five women servants living in, including a William Hutchins, whose widow ten years later was living in the Park as an alms-woman, attesting to the Earl's responsibility to his staff. Thomas Hargas, the butler, was there in 1861 and still in 1871.

In 1871 the Earl, his wife, a young son (Arthur Algernon, Jr.), and a four month-old baby daughter (Beatrice Mary) are enumerated, and the staff was much larger: the butler, valet, French chef, scullery men, footman and boy, plus a governess, a nurse, housekeeper, lady=s maid, nursery maid, four housemaids, laundry-maid, three kitchen maids and a still room maid.

An article in the Watford Observer described how the Earl was an authority on the sport of croquet and Adevised the >Cassiobury set, which had such a vogue at the time, and proved very remunerative from a financial point of view. His Lordship was a popular man, and an 1891 guidebook to Watford mentioned Athe high esteem and respect in which the present Earl is held by his poorer neighbours, who are allowed to roam at will over the beautiful expanse of the park.

In 1890 a writer for the Watford Observer visited Arthur who was then in his eighty-seventh year. The old Earl received his guest from an old green leather chair which had once been the property of David Garrick, and was wearing a grey tweed suit with a scarlet geranium in his button-hole. Throughout his life he had suffered from neuralgia, and because of his failing eyesight he had to have the daily newspaper read to him by his wife, Louisa Heneage, whom he never tired of praising for her care and attention. He talked of his Eton days when he remembered being sent upstairs to rouse Richard Brinsley Sheridan from his slumbers after a drinking bout at Cassiobury.

Arthur Algernon Capel, sixth Earl of Essex, had an Irish mistress. Her identity was a well-kept secret, which is why she was kept in Ireland, far from prying English eyes and the scandalous tongues of the nobility. In fact, however, her name was Beatrice Desmond, and she was a member of the great Anglo-Irish family of Fitzgeralds, ancient Earls of Desmond.

AThe Earl's liaison with that Irish woman,' as she was most often referred to, was common knowledge at the time, wrote a family member.²⁶ AHe was nearly fifty at the time, so most everyone in the family attributed it to mid-life crisis.

Inasmuch as Lord Arthur was about fifty years of age at the time, then his affair occurred after more than twenty-five years of marriage to Lady Caroline Jeanetta Beauclerk, and nearly a decade before his second marriage to another Irish lady, Caroline Elizabeth Boyle of County Cork.

The illegitimate son of the sixth Earl of Essex by his Irish mistress, Beatrice Desmond, was born at Castle Desmond, County Cork, in the year 1853, the exact date being obscured by the secrecy surrounding his birth. He was christened George Arthur Ingerfield Capel.

The responsibility of his up-bringing and education could not long be kept from notice. Shortly after the establishment of English divorce courts in 1857, the bastard son was brought to Cassiobury and raised as a member of the family. He was set apart by the shocks of red hair which denoted his Irish heritage.

George Capel was raised with every advantage as though he was legitimate, except that he could not succeed to the peerage of inheritance. He received the best education available in English schools and when not involved in his studies he could be found at Cassiobury, or Rayne Hall, or one of the Irish estates belonging to the sixth Earl or his relations.

His favorite place was Castle Desmond, where he could roam wild and free across the Irish countryside, unrestricted by either boundaries or conventions, neither of which he had much respect for. This too was the home of his mother's people, where the Desmonds still lived as tenants on lands which had once belonged to them.

An avid reader, his father had given him a copy of The Deerslayer by James Fennemore Cooper, which he devoured from cover-to-cover half a dozen times, and relived in his imagination a thousand. It gave him fodder for childhood games. With his young friends, especially Moreton Frewen and Florence Sullivan, he played Apaches and Mohicans in the spinney between the Bandon and the Lee, behind Innishannon, the Frewen country estate.

At an early age George exhibited signs of rebellious behavior. In later years his grand-niece would recall: AGeorge loved only horses, and could most often be found at the stables, or riding through the Park [at Cassiobury]. He was one of the youngest members of the Old Berkeley Hunt, and fancied himself a young adventurer. He was also a superb marksman at an early age, and greatly embarrassed his father on a particular occasion in front of distinguished company by shooting off the heads of some of Cassiobury's prized imported swans.²⁷

Because of this incident, coupled with George's increasingly erratic behavior and ungovernable temper, he was shipped off to an exclusive French school at Paris in the hopes that the experience would Abroaden his education. In fact, he was a good student, in spite of his propensity for mischief, and soon excelled in the French language, literature, and the arts. But his sojourn in Paris brought him under the influence of a man who would change his life.

At the same academy was a somewhat older youth, an American medical student named Jesse S. Hoy, from Hoy's Gap, Pennsylvania. Hoy had stolen a herd of cattle in Wyoming, intending to drive them to Brown's Park and start a ranch. To his chagrin he learned that the cattle belonged to the federal government. Pursued by government agents, Hoy fled to Europe, first to Switzerland, them to Paris where he enrolled in medical school.

Hoy's stay in Paris was Acut short due to his extra-curricular activities with the wives of fellow medical students. One day an irate husband and several of his friends cornered Hoy and surgically castrated him. He shortly thereafter returned to the American West, and George Capel joined him there in 1871.

Innishannon was an estate adjoining Castle Desmond in County Cork, where there were rookeries, trout streams, and excellent hunting, not to mention the great Irish horse races. Innishannon belonged to Lord Thomas Frewen, whose son Moreton became George Capel's closest friend.

Moreton Frewen was born 8 May 1853 at Brickwall, Northiam, County Sussex, England, the fifth son of Thomas Frewen by his second wife, helen Louisa Homan, of Arden Wood, County Kildare, Ireland. Moreton was an irresponsible philanderer and inveterate gambler. Having gone through his younger son's portion of his father=s estates in a little under three years, he decided to bet his entire fortune and future on the outcome of a horse race. He placed a bet on the Doncaster Cup. If he won, he would spend a year or two hunting as Master of the Kilkenny Hounds; if he lost, he would seek his fortune in Wyoming, where his friend Capel had already gone. His horse, Hampton, lost the race. The date was Friday the 13^th of September 1878.

For those that want to see Butch Cassidy's house where he grew up go to the bottom and click "Next", he was born in Beaver Utah.

Moreton Frewen established the 76 Ranch in Wyomign (made famous by Owen Wister's book The Virginian), became the founder of the town of Sussex, on the Powder River (named for his English home), and was the man who gave the name to Hole-in-the-Wall, the notorious outlaw stronghold near his ranch (which he named for his favorite pub section of London).

George Capel made Hole-in-the-Wall his base of operations and the rustlers who lived there became part of a network from Canada to Mexico engaged in large scale rustling. Under the name AGeorge Ingerfield, Capel established what came to be known as the ARustlers Trail; in time, it came to be more famous still as the AOutlaw Trail.

Hon. George Capel, illegitimate son of the sixth Earl of Essex, was shot to death from ambush near Tombstone, Arizona, in 1892.

George Capel sired a number of children, only one known to have been from wedlock. He had an affair with pretty Anna Louisa ALouise Frewen, sister of his good friend Moreton. On 25 November 1876, Louise gave birth to a daughter at the family estate of Innishannon, County Cork, Ireland. She was christened Laura Etta Capel. She ran away from home at the age of thirteen and went to America to find her father. She became famous (or infamous) as the lady horseback outlaw Etta Place.

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NOTE: The foregoing is excerpted and paraphrased from the forthcoming book, tentatively titled: The Unholy Trinity: The Untold Story of Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and Etta Place, by Kerry Ross Boren and Lisa Lee Boren. The book is scheduled for publication in the autumn of 2000 tentatively through Bonneville Books, Springville, Utah (1-800-759-2665). The authors invite the readers to visit their website for more information @ www.oboran.com or contact them at P.O. Box 58872, Salt Lake City, Utah 84158-0872.

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1. Viking Scotland, Anna Ritchie, b.T. Batsford, London, 1993.

2. A History of the Sinclair Family, Leonard A. Morrison, Damprell and Upman, Boston, 1896; see also Following the Ark of the Covenant, Kerry Ross Boren & Lisa Lee Boren, Bonneville Books, Springville, Utah, 2000.

3. Kerry Ross Boren is a descendant of the Morley family. Ironically, Cassidy's uncle, Brigham Young McMullin, was also a Morley descendant.

4. The Stanley,s hereditary Earls of Derby and Mounteagle, are the ancestors of Lisa Lee boren.

5. Ancestor of Kerry Ross Boren.

6. Calendar of State Papers, reign of Henry VIII, Brewer and Gardiner, ed.

7. Ibid.

8. Interview with Josie Bassett Morris, Jensen, Utah, 1960. Butch's interest in the old Scottish histories stems from the fact that his maternal grandmother was a Sinclair, of the famous Sinclairs of Rosslyn, Scotland, a branch of the clan Möre.

9. Autobiography of Etta Place (under a pseudonym), possession of the authors. Etta quotes Dickens frequently throughout her memoirs. For example, on page 315: AOne night we went to Yarmouth, famous for bloaters and for being the scene of some of David Copperfield's experiences.

10. LDS Genealogical Archives, Salt Lake City, Utah.

11. Thomas Schofield was great-grandfather of Kerry Ross Boren. He was born 30 December 1826 at Ashton-Under-Lyne, Lancashire, England, son of Jonathan Schofield and Hannah Heywood. His father, a printer of profession, had set type for some of Dickens' early works in Monthly Magazine. Thomas Schofield's mother, Hannah Heywood, was a niece of Peter Heywood, that unfortunate youth whose death aboard the H.M.S. Bounty brought about the famous court-martial for mutiny which became epic literary history.

12. Autobiographical sketches of Charles Dickens, published in Monthly Magazine and later compiled into a volume of his life.

14. LDS Genealogical Archives. Robert Parker died at St. George, Utah, but is buried at Washington.

17. The first wife of Kerry Ross Boren was a direct descendant of Johann Eberhard Riehm and Elizabeth Schwab.

18. Edward M. Kirby, in his book The Rise and Fall of the Sundance Kid (Western Publications, Iola, WI, 1983) records that Heinrich Longabaugh, born 17 July 1774, was Aapparently son of Conyard. However, Conyard Longabaugh did not marry until 1781. Other researchers have made this error. It should be pointed out nevertheless that Ed Kirby is an astute and generally accurate researcher.

20. Autobiography of Etta Place (published under a pseudonym in 1928; the authors will reveal the title in their forthcoming book).

22. As quoted in AThe History of Cassiobury, West Hertfordshire Antiquarian Society.

23. As a point of interest, not only was Sir Richard Morison the ancestor of Etta Place, he was also the direct ancestor of the western actor John Wayne (whose true name was Michael Marion Morrison).

26. Beatrice Capel-Stanley, great-granddaughter of Arthur Algernon Capel, sixth Earl of Essesx, to Kerry Ross Boren, 13 April 1974.