Cassidy Clan Mini-Book Excerpt
In addition to achieving fame, bearers of the Cassidy name have also earned a fair degree of infamy.
Of mixed English and Scottish descent, Robert LeRoy Parker, born in 1866 in Beaver, Utah became better known as the American outlaw Butch Cassidy.
It was while aged in his early teens that he first made the acquaintance of the horse thief and cattle rustler Mike Cassidy and, impressed by his exploits, later adopted his surname.
The forename ‘Butch’ was acquired when he worked for a brief time as a butcher.
By 1887 he had embarked on his notorious career as an outlaw, later forming a gang known as the Wild Bunch.
With the forces of law and order on his heels Cassidy and fellow Wild Bunch outlaw Harry Alonzo Longabaugh, better known as the Sundance Kid, fled to South America.
Their nemesis came in November of 1908 near San Vicente, in southern Bolivia, when they were shot to death in a shoot-out after robbing the payroll of a silver mine.
Their daring exploits are portrayed in the 1969 Western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, starring Paul Newman as Cassidy and Robert Redford as the Sundance Kid.
