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Monday, November 06, 2006
Cassidy as a Youth (Update)
In response to my Nov. 3 posting (see below), I received some feedback from Dan Buck on some of the history behind the photograph.
Nov. 3 -
As far as I can determine, the image first appeared in print on the cover of the OUTLAW TRAIL JOURNAL (vol. 3, no. 2, summer/fall 1993), which is published by the Outlaw Trail History Center at the Uintah County Library in Vernal, Utah.
The caption, on p. 1, reads: "1880 photo of Butch Cassidy from an album thought to have been put together by Laura Bullion when she was in Montana with Ben Kilpatrick. Chuck (Charles) K. Terrill purchased this album at a sale in the Seattle area. It was in a basement where an old lady had died who was believed to have been a relative of the Kilpatrick family."
Observations: the young man depicted doesn't look like Cassidy; in 1880 Cassidy was but a boy of 13; the authenticity of the album is established via "thought to have," "an old lady who was believed to be," and so on -- the usual vaporous links said to establish provenance. A common occurrence: Someone buys a photo album at a yard sale and decides the anonymous images are of famous outlaws.
Not the real McCoy.
Dan
And a follow-up Nov. 4 -
Here's how our highly computerized archives work: every now & again, if we think material squirreled away in one file might pertain to a topic guarded in another, we scribble a note to that effect & dump it in file no. 2. Thus, in the bulging accordion file labeled "BC fotos" (meaning in reality "dubious & doubtful & imaginary BC fotos") we had slipped in a 3x5 card marked "See Kid Curry file for Chuck Terrill album Xeroxes."
In amongst several pounds of Kid Curry material I found some early 1990s correspondence with a researcher about a photo album discovered by Chuck Terrill, as well as an interview with Terrill published in the VALLEY DAILY NEWS (Kent, WA) on March 16, 1992. Turns out Terrill bought the album in May 1991 at the Midway Swap Meet in Kent for $17. He judged that his find, which he calls the "Lost Wild Bunch Album," to be worth $100,000, "perhaps a lot more." One way or another, Terrill identified the anonymous photos in the album as depicting Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, Ben Kilpatrick, Laura Bullion, Black Jack Ketchum, Harvey Logan, Lonnie Logan, and so on. The Curry researcher, who worked more or less as Terrill's enabler, claimed that he had "traced" the travels of Lonnie Logan's widow Elfia Logan '"after her husband's death to the Seattle area."
In other words, album found at a swap meet; Lonnie Logan's widow might have once traveled through the Seattle area; ergo album belonged to Elfia Logan; ergo the anonymous photographs are of assorted famous outlaws.
By the time the supposed Cassidy image landed at the J. Willard Marriott Library, the provenance tale had improved to "a basement where an old lady had died who was believed to have been a relative of the Kilpatrick family."
Get this: some guy named Dan Buck (yes, the same) is quoted in the 1992 article as a major skeptic: "'I just don't see it,' Buck said, though he agreed there was a resemblance. 'I wish the guy the best of luck. I hope everything works out for him but I'm skeptical.'"
Looking at it all again today, all I can do is repeat myself: "I just don't see it."
Dan
Thanks again for the information Dan.
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