Butch Cassidy Read Free Page A

Handcart Pioneers trudged westward. Ann Parker constantly scanned the trail behind them searching for sign of her husband and son. At night she prayed and cried, fearing the two had been captured or killed by Indians.
    On the evening of July 5 after camp was made and dinner served, Ann Parker walked to a low knoll where she knelt and prayed. When she had finished and rose to return to camp, she detected something moving in the distance far to the east. Though it was dusk and the light was dim, she recognized her husband’s gait. As she squinted into the distance, she saw another figure, this one smaller and wrapped in a red shawl, walking alongside Robert. It was Arthur. Her prayers had been answered.
    On July 15, another handcart company departed Iowa City for the valley of the Great Salt Lake. In this company was the Gillies family, originally from Scotland but most recently from England—Robert and Jane and their four children Moroni, Daniel, Christina, and Annie. Like the Parkers, the Gillies family converted to the Mormon faith while residing in England. As with the MacArthur Company that departed over a month earlier, this one faced similar tedium and the dangers of the long journey, including drought, Indians, and the deterioration of the poorly constructed handcarts. The company in which the Gillies traveled also ran low on food, and eventually each member was rationed less than one-half pound of flour per day.
    The MacArthur party of English, Danish, and Swedish converts crossed the Missouri River during late August 1856. Men, women, and children alike had long since tired of walking and pulling their belongings in the handcarts. They were also tiring of the fare; biscuits or corn bread and salt pork comprised almost every meal. As the hopes of the travelers flagged, Elder MacArthur tried to keep their spirits up, telling them the promised land of the valley of the Great Salt Lake was not far away.
    The party with which the Parkers traveled was still a long way from their goal when it was struck by October snowstorms along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. By the time they reached South Pass in Wyoming, blizzard-like conditions accompanied by temperatures well below zero and deep, nearly impassable snow drifts severely hampered travel and were responsible for a number of deaths. Of the approximately three thousand members of the church who undertook the 1,300-mile journey from Iowa City to the valley of the Great Salt Lake, at least 250 perished along the way.
    Robert and Ann Parker, along with their children, survived the terrible weather and continued their journey, walking and pulling their cart to Utah along with the surviving Mormon faithful. Eager to help, young Maximillian, still only twelve years old, did more than his share. On September 26, 1856, following over one hundred days of toil, they finally arrived at the valley of the Great Salt Lake. Seven members of the MacArthur Company died along the trail.
    An oft-told tale relative to the Parker journey overland to Salt Lake City has the elder Parker dying. In The Outlaw Trail: A History of Butch Cassidy and His Wild Bunch , originally published in 1938, Charles Kelly wrote, “Being one of the strongest men in the party, he was given a position well in the lead, where he helped break trail through deep snowdrifts.” Kelly goes on to relate that the “strenuous exertions on behalf of his starving and freezing family finally sapped his strength, and one bitter cold morning he was found dead in his blankets, almost within sight of the warm valley of the Green River.”
    Kelly’s yarn is characteristic of what many people think they know about Butch Cassidy’s origins. This tale, while certainly a dramatic and somewhat romantic one, lacks anything to do with the truth. Poorly researched publications such as Kelly’s have continued to generate misunderstanding relative to the lives and times of American outlaws in general and Butch Cassidy in