Butch Cassidy (22 page)

After visiting with the man for a while, Joyce Warner looked him in the eye and said, “You’re Butch Cassidy, aren’t you?” The old man admitted he was.

Joyce Warner also related that, for several months following the visit of the man she believed to be Butch Cassidy, she received letters from him. In 1941, she said, the letters stopped coming, and she presumed he had died.

Two issues of the
Salt Lake City Tribune
that appeared in October 1993 related another potential encounter with Butch Cassidy, this one occurring in 1941. In July of that year, a Utah state trooper named Merrill Johnson pulled over an elderly man for running a stop sign near Kanab. The old fellow was from out of state—the car bore California license plates—and Johnson simply wrote the driver a warning citation and allowed him to proceed on his way.

Trooper Johnson was living with his in-laws during this time, a family named Kitchen. That evening when Johnson returned home, he noticed the same car with the California plates that had been driven by the old man was parked nearby. When Johnson walked into the house, he was surprised to see the same old fellow visiting with his father-in-law, John Kitchen. Kitchen introduced the old-timer to Johnson as an “old friend of the family, Bob Parker—Butch Cassidy.” Johnson recalled during the conversation that evening that the old fellow talked quite a bit about his life in Bolivia. Kitchen and Cassidy had known each other years earlier in Utah.

The following day, Trooper Johnson drove the old man to Fredonia, Arizona, where he met with Bill Parker, whom he said was his brother. After driving him back to Kanab, the old man drove away, telling Kitchen he was on his way to Wyoming.

Merrill Johnson was not particularly well versed in Western outlaw history, and so the name Butch Cassidy did not leave him as impressed as some others would have been. Later, when Johnson was showed photographs of the outlaw Butch Cassidy, he stated there was no question they were images of the same man who visited father-in-law in 1941.

The accounts from people who claimed to have been contacted by Butch Cassidy years, decades, after he was supposedly killed in San Vicente, Bolivia, are numerous and compelling. What are the chances that Cassidy lived past 1908 and returned to the United States? Since no conclusive evidence exists that Cassidy was killed in San Vicente, or anywhere else for that matter, the possibility remains great.

It would be helpful to subject the post-1908 encounters with Butch Cassidy to close examination and attempt to provide some explanation. Consider the possibilities of what may have occurred:

1. The events involving the return of the outlaw Butch Cassidy were lies. Several researchers have contended that the alleged meetings and visits with Butch Cassidy during the first four decades of the 1900s were contrived, made up, and that those who reported such things had lied.
   
2. An imposter assumed a Butch Cassidy identity. Some have expressed the notion that someone posing as Butch Cassidy may have visited the Parker family and other Cassidy haunts and friends, passing himself off as the famous outlaw.
   
3. Butch Cassidy survived the South American experience and did, indeed, return to the United States. A number of researchers are convinced the outlaw Butch Cassidy did, in fact, live beyond 1908 and return to the United States, where he passed away as an old man.
   

Regarding the first possibility, it is difficult to believe, even for the most cynical, that dozens of people during a period of over three or more decades and separated by great expanses of geography could or would manufacture tales of encountering Butch Cassidy in the United States, meetings that exhibited some consistency relative to dates and places. While the chances that some of those who reported visits from Cassidy could have been exaggerated, many more were credible, honest individuals who stood nothing to gain from making up such a story. Even if only one of the dozens of those who claimed to have seen Cassidy was correct, that is enough to cause one to consider such a circumstance.

The second possibility—that someone assumed a Butch Cassidy identity and managed to fool Cassidy relatives and friends—is hardly worth considering. That someone posing as Cassidy, someone who looked remarkably like the outlaw, managed to pass himself off and succeed in fooling all of those people, most of whom knew Cassidy well or were related to him, and would certainly not be duped by an imposter, is not only highly unlikely but also preposterous.

The third possibility—that Butch Cassidy did return—likewise presents problems. While the evidence that such a thing happened is plentiful and, in many cases, complementary, there is no absolute and uncontested proof. All researchers have to rely on, for the most part, are eyewitness accounts and a few photographs. The photographs, while suggesting that Butch Cassidy did indeed return, do not represent hard, uncontested evidence. However plausible, however likely Butch Cassidy did return following his alleged death in San Vicente, Bolivia, it has never been proven beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Into this mix of theory and speculation about the return of Butch Cassidy arrives a man named William T. Phillips, believed by many to be the final alias for the outlaw.

Seventten

Enter William T. Phillips

The last time Butch Cassidy was officially heard from was via a February 16, 1908, letter he wrote to Clement Rolla Glass in La Paz from the Concordia Tin Mines. Following that date, there exists no verification, or even substantial evidence, that Butch Cassidy remained in South America.

Three months later, a man named William T. Phillips appeared in the United States. Years later, when Phillips was investigated, it was discovered there existed no documents to prove that he ever existed prior to 1908. In other words, shortly after Cassidy disappeared, Phillips appeared.

Many of those who reported encounters with Butch Cassidy in the United States after he was allegedly killed in Bolivia stated that the outlaw often used the alias “William T. Phillips.”

So, who exactly was William T. Phillips? Where did he come from? Why is his life prior to May 1908 unaccounted? And, more importantly, could he possibly have been the outlaw Butch Cassidy?

Most of what is known about this rather enigmatic man whom many believe was the famous outlaw has come from the extensive research of two men—author Larry Pointer and magazine editor Jim Dullenty.

When Pointer was married in Lander, Wyoming, in 1972, one of the members of the wedding party was a man named Allan Robertson, a grandson of Dora Lamorreaux. Lamorreaux was one of Butch Cassidy’s sweethearts during the early 1890s. From Robertson’s father, Bill, Pointer heard a number of stories about Cassidy returning to Lander to visit friends during the 1930s, tales often related by the late Lamorreaux.

Intrigued by this information that severely contradicted generally accepted history, Pointer undertook a study of Butch Cassidy, all the while pondering the possibilities that the outlaw survived the Bolivian shootout and came back to the United States. During the course of his research, Pointer encountered James Dullenty, at the time a reporter for a Spokane, Washington, newspaper. Dullenty, who knew about William T. Phillips, had written a series of intriguing articles about him for his newspaper. Together, Pointer and Dullenty pursued additional research into the possibility Phillips could have been Butch Cassidy. Eventually, however, the two men fell into disagreement and went their separate ways, each of them independently pursuing their own research agenda, and both making significant contributions relative to William T. Phillips.

Logically, Pointer decided to begin investigating Phillips with his date and place of birth and trace him from that point on. Almost immediately, however, contradictions arose. When Phillips passed away in 1937, his death certificate placed his date of birth at June 22, 1865, in Michigan. His father was identified as L. J. Phillips and his mother Celia Mudge Phillips. Other Spokane records located by Pointer specifically identified Phillips’s place of birth as Sandusky, Michigan, and his father’s first name as Laddie. Given this beginning, Pointer made his way to Michigan to learn more.

Census records for Michigan during the middle of the nineteenth century were, relative to the times, comparatively up to date, complete, well ordered, and appropriately archived. Therefore, there should have been no trouble locating Phillips’s parents and his birth record. According to the Michigan records, however, no such person as Laddie J. Phillips ever existed. A Celia Mudge was located, but her recorded date of birth would have placed her at only twelve years old when giving birth to William T. Phillips. Furthermore, the records show Celia Mudge was married in 1875 to one Hezekiah Snell. According to Pointer, descendants of the Mudge-Snell union never heard of William T. Phillips.

Further research into Phillips’s past yielded no information whatsoever. The first legitimate paperwork ever associated with the man known as William T. Phillips was dated May 14,1908—his marriage license. On that date, he was wed to Gertrude Livesay in Adrian, Michigan. Prior to that date, there is no evidence that Phillips ever existed under that name.

Phillips had come to Adrian, he told people, to get away from the hustle and bustle of Des Moines, Iowa, to relax a bit and see the country. While walking through the streets of Adrian, Phillips once related, he wandered into a church where he met his future wife, who was visiting from nearby Morenci where she lived.

Gertrude Livesay was described as “plain” and “sickly.” She suffered from chronic asthma and remained generally weak most of the time. She was thirty-two years old when she married Phillips. The wedding occurred following a rather brief courtship and in direct opposition of the wishes of her mother and sister. Gertrude’s father had been dead for five years at the time. On the marriage license, Phillips recorded his name as William Thadeus Phillips, his age as thirty-four, and his residence as Des Moines. He claimed he had been born in Michigan and his profession was “mechanical engineer.” Following a honeymoon in Colorado, the two moved to Globe, Arizona.

While living in Globe, it is entirely possible that Phillips joined a group of mercenaries organized to travel to Mexico and fight with the revolutionaries. The group of sharpshooters, called the
Falange de los Extranjeros
, was under the command of Captain Linderfelt, and each was paid six dollars per day. It was during this time that Henry Bowman claimed he encountered Butch Cassidy in Colonia Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua.

Apparently the dry, high-altitude southwestern climate of Globe was beneficial to the asthmatic Gertrude Phillips, for she appeared to regain her health. During the late summer of 1910, the two traveled throughout much of Wyoming and Montana, eventually arriving in Spokane, Washington, in late December. It was during this trip that Phillips visited Dan Hillman and probably looked up old friend and former Wild Buncher Tom O’Day. Concerning O’Day, Phillips wrote the following in a manuscript several years later:

All of the members of the original Wild bunch . . . except two had been wiped out. The one who had been most sought [had] now become a man of mystery and the man who he first met upon the day he entered the Hole in the wall, Tom O’day. O’day is yet living.

Indeed, according to the results of Pointer’s research, Tom O’Day was, in fact, living at Lost Cabin, Wyoming, during the time Phillips claimed he came through.

Shortly after arriving in Spokane, Phillips took a job with the Washington Water Power Company. Following subsequent employment stints with something called the American Stereotypewriter Company and a prospecting trip to Alaska, Phillips started the Phillips Manufacturing Company (PMC) in 1915. The business of PMC, according to Pointer, was “the development of adding and listing machines.” Pointer learned that the Burroughs Company was interested in Phillips’s adding machine, apparently inviting the inventor to their corporate offices to discuss the matter. Phillips and the Burroughs Company could not agree on a price for the invention, and the inventor broke off discussion. Months later, Burroughs initiated production of an adding machine strikingly similar to the one designed by Phillips.

William and Gertrude Phillips were unable to have children, and in 1919 adopted a child, a boy named William Richard. They called him Billy.

In 1925, the Riblet Tramway Company, which had consigned work to Phillips Manufacturing Company on several occasions, asked the inventor to travel to Bolivia to manage the construction of a tramway. Phillips turned Riblet down but told Gertrude and young Billy that he was going to South America. Instead, he used this opportunity to travel to Wyoming and Utah. It was during the year 1925 that Butch Cassidy reportedly visited his relatives and many of his friends in those states.

Phillips eventually returned to Spokane and his business, which, at the time, was in solid, financial condition. Unfortunately, the Great Depression was approaching. One of Phillips’s principal sources of income was the Riblet Tramway Company, but in 1928 it suffered severe losses and cut back significantly on its consignments. As a result, Phillips was, for all intents and purposes, out of work. In January 1929, he sold one-third interest in his company to his lawyer, Gardner L. Farnham. The agreement stipulated that if Farnham was unsatisfied with the deal within one year, Phillips would pay him back and regain his share. After ten months, Farnham asked for his money, but Phillips was so broke he was unable to pay it. In May 1930, Phillips’s employees purchased the remaining shares. By June, Phillips offered to turn over the remaining one-third to them if they would assume all of his debts. They did.

Shortly afterward, Phillips returned to Wyoming, this time to hunt for stolen money reportedly buried by Butch Cassidy many years earlier. As far as is known, he never found any, and when he returned to Spokane, he was still broke. During the Depression years, Phillips worked at odd jobs where he could find them in Spokane, barely making enough money to keep food on the table. He was forced to sell his house and move into a more modest one in a less exclusive part of town.

In 1934, Phillips returned to Wyoming. On this trip he was accompanied by Ellen Harris and her son, Ben Fitzharris. Mr. and Mrs. Harris, living in Hollywood, California, at the time, had been neighbors and good friends of the Phillips family in Spokane. Mrs. Harris and Ben rendezvoused with Phillips in Salt Lake City and drove with him to Wyoming. Young Fitzharris had been told by his parents that Phillips was Butch Cassidy, but it made little impression on him at the time. On arriving in Wyoming and meeting so many of Cassidy’s friends and listening to their stories, he quickly became convinced that the old man who was his traveling companion was indeed the former outlaw.

Young Fitzharris was dazzled by Phillips’s exhibitions of marksmanship with Colt revolvers. According to Pointer, Fitzharris was quoted as saying Phillips was an “honorable man and a very powerful character, not only physically, but mentally powerful.”

It was during this trip that Phillips was encouraged to write down the story of his life. When he returned to Spokane following his journey to Wyoming and Utah, Phillips began penning a manuscript he titled “The Bandit Invincible.”

After Phillips’s death, “The Bandit Invincible” was found. It is unclear whether the manuscript was intended to be a novel or a biography. According to Pointer, it was poorly organized, it was replete with misspellings, and there was no sense of order or chronology. A reading of numerous excerpts from the manuscript reveals no sense of composition style and a lack of intimacy with the construction and progress of such an undertaking. The manuscript also suggests a hurried attempt to record events of the past. Phillips wrote the manuscript, not as Butch Cassidy, but as a person who had known the outlaw from boyhood. For the most part, it was written as a third-person narrative, but in a couple of instances, Phillips slipped up and employed the first person.

In the preface of “The Bandit Invincible,” Phillips wrote that much of what had been previously reported about Butch Cassidy had been conjecture and, for the most part, incorrect. He implied that he intended to tell the true story of the famous outlaw. In the first of what turned out to be many rationalizations of the outlaw’s misdeeds, Phillips wrote that “Cassidy did not rob for the lust of gain, nor was it his natural trend. He had as he thought, every good reason for his first holdup, and after the first, there was no place to stop.”

In the manuscript, Phillips purposely changed the names of people and places, possibly, as Pointer suggested, to protect those who were still alive or maybe even descendants of friends. Despite the purposeful changes, the chronological inaccuracies, and even perhaps some purposely misleading information, the manuscript, according to Pointer, carried “more truth than recorded history itself.” Pointer claims “The Bandit Invincible” is “the last testament of a man who did wrong, who knew he did wrong, and who felt a need to tell others why he did wrong.” It was Cassidy’s way, suggests Pointer, to make peace with his maker.

Pointer undertook the enormous task of attempting to verify as much of the manuscript as possible. He traveled thousands of miles, spent countless hours in libraries, courthouses, reading newspaper files, and interviewing anyone and everyone who might have some insight into the life and activities of Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch.

Although the manuscript was written three to four decades after most of the events actually occurred, it contained descriptions of people and places that could only have been attained through personal experience. If William T. Phillips was not Butch Cassidy, he most certainly was with Cassidy when most of the events occurred, or at least not far behind him. Names and places included in the Phillips manuscript initially unknown to historians were researched and found to exist. If Phillips had not had firsthand experience, the only way he could have known certain specific details would have been to conduct thorough research in a number of small Wyoming newspapers that were in business during the late 1890s.

For example, in “The Bandit Invincible” Phillips mentions two Lander lawmen from the mid-1890s named Grimmett and Baldwin, two names not commonly found in the various histories of Butch Cassidy. However, Pointer examined the Fremont County, Wyoming, Sheriff’s Record Book and found that a Sheriff Orson Grimmett served as Fremont County sheriff between 1895 and 1897, and from 1899 to 1901. Research in the pages of an 1890s issue of the Lander newspaper, the
Fremont Clipper
, yielded information on the activities of one Deputy Jim Baldwin. Dogged research by Pointer even turned up a photograph of a Lander saloon that existed only during the 1890s, a saloon that was referred to by Phillips in the manuscript.