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Burnley Express & News. Tuesday May 5th 2009.
Legendary American outlaw Butch Cassidy had a very surprising secret- his family came from Burnley! Many myths and tales have been told about the infamous train robber, bank raider and leader of the "Hole in the Wall" gang, but Butch's origins had never been fully discovered until one of his distant relatives uncovered their family's surprising past.
Butch, whose real name was Robert Leroy Parker, was the grandson of Robert Parker, who was born in Burnley and lived in Worsthorne, says Burnley historian Mr Arthur Towneley Parker, himself a distant relative.
Robert Parker moved to Preston and joined the Mormon faith before moving to America with his wife, Anne, and son, Maximilian, in 1856. They arrived in Nebraska and walked for 700 miles with their belongings to Salt Lake City, Utah, and became farmers. Max then married and in 1866 had a son, Robert Leroy Parker, who grew up to become a butcher, hence the nickname "Butch".
He took the surname Cassidy, says Mr Parker, after falling in with a cattle rustler called Cassidy, and took his surname to avoid bringing "shame and disrepute" on his family, said Mr Towneley Parker.
Butch went on to become a bank and train robber with the "Hole in the Wall" gang, including the Sundance Kid, and was America's most notorious criminal, with "wanted" posters appearing all over the country offering a reward for his capture dead or alive.
He died in 1908 in a shoot-out in Bolivia and was later immortalised in the 1969 blockbuster "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", in which he was played by Paul Newman.
Mr Towneley Parker said the link to his family had been uncovered decades ago, by his relative and fellow Burnley historian Ken Spencer, and he had then looked into the links through his family tree himself.
He said, "I started to sort through all the connections and found that it was correct. It is nearly impossible to ascertain what relation he is because there are so many Parkers from Burnley and so many branches of the family.
"I suppose it is an interesting tale, but it is just one of those things. Every family has it's black sheep and in any family you can find controversy of some sort. But I suppose it is interesting to know his family originated from Burnley.
Stephanie.
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