Mormons lived in the wild, wild west. Author Steve LeSeuer has a tale of murder, involving his great uncle Frank LeSeuer. Frank grew up on St. Johns, Arizona, a far, out-of-the-way place. At the turn of the 20th century, St Johns didn’t have electricity or running water. It turns out that Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch frequented the area, although it is clear that Butch wasn’t directly involved in the murder Frank and his friend Gus Gibbons. The Wild Bunch were stealing cattle, and a posse was raised by the sheriff to track the outlaws down.
Historian Stephen LeSeuer details more about the outlaws of Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. It turns out that Butch Cassidy used the alias Jim Lowe and was a trusted cowhand on ranches in Arizona and New Mexico as a cover for his notorious criminal activities. He knew several members of the Wild Bunch and worked with them often.
While searching for the Wild Bunch, Gus Gibbons & Frank LeSeuer were ambushed and brutally killed. It turns out Gus and Frank were Nauvoo pioneers. I was also surprised to find out that Butch Cassidy grew up in a small Utah town (Circleville), although it seems that Mormonism didn’t really take with him.
I talked to Steve last week and was sad to learn he has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and is on his third round of chemo. Of course, that is one of the more deadly cancers. Steve is hoping to shrink the tumor enough to have surgery. I hope you’ll share in prayers for Steve in this trying time. If you want to purchase his book, it is called “Life and Death on the Mormon Frontier: The Murders of Frank LeSueur and Gus Gibbons by the Wild Bunch” and is available at https://amzn.to/3F5tFBY . Are you familiar with this story?
Wheat & Tares 
Butch Cassidy was born Robert LeRoy Parker. I am a direct descendant of his aunt Martha Alice Parker (1846-1925), who married John Stillman Woodbury Sr. (1825-1914). Cassidy’s grandparents, Robert Parker (1820-1901) and Ann Hartley (1819-1899), were textile workers from Lancashire, England, where they joined the LDS Church. They sailed to America in 1856 on the ship “Enoch Train” with their four children, Maximilian (Cassidy’s future father), 12; Martha Alice, 10; Arthur, 6; and Ada, 1; and traveled to Utah in Daniel D. McArthur’s handcart company. Arthur was the little boy who fell asleep by the trail and was eventually found by his father at a trading station—he waved a bright red shawl his wife had given him as a signal of success (a story, perhaps slightly exaggerated, used in a talk by Boyd K. Packer in the October 1974 General Conference)). They lived first in American Fork, then Beaver, and finally Washington, Utah, and had two more daughters, Caroline and Ellen. (At least three children died as infants.) Cassidy was born in 1866 in Beaver; his mother was Annie Campbell Gillies, the daughter of Robert Gillies and Jane Sinclair. This information comes from various family records including the book “Butch Cassidy, My Brother” by Lula Parker Betenson as told to Dora Flack (BYU Press 1975)—probably published to take advantage of the interest sparked by the 1969 movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” Betenson’s great-grandson Bill also wrote a book, “Butch Cassidy, My Uncle” (High Plains 2012), which I’m not familiar with.