Appendix CASE ONE - Collection Point® | The Total Digital Asset ...

182 Legal History in the Making
From about 1896 onwards Cassidy established a stronghold and hideaway
at Brown's Hole in the Uinta Mountains, at almost exactly the point where
Wyoming, Utah and Colorado meet. In due course he was joined there by
the Hole in the Wall gang. It is said that when one hundred or so badmen
left the Hole in the Wall to move to Brown's Hole, they pillaged every sheep
camp they encountered on the way and killed all the sheep. At about this time
Cassidy and the others at Brown's Hole became known as the Wild Bunch.
The gang included, of course, the Sundance Kid. From their fortress the Wild
Bunch ravaged the neighbourhood and continued to do so until 1900.
It is of passing interest to note that Cassidy left the Wyoming area largely
as a result of a novel but misplaced attempt to establish a legal aid system.
When one of his confederates, Matt Warner, was arrested on a double murder
charge, Cassidy got two of his henchmen to rob a bank. The proceeds were
used to pay for Douglas V. Preston to represent Warner. In fact Preston was
paid a retainer by Cassidy and represented several of the Wild Bunch before
becoming the Attorney-General of Wyoming. But the Bank which had been
robbed was a member of the American Bankers' Association, and they set
Pinkertons onto the Wild Bunch; from then on the pressure was on. In about
1900 Cassidy left Brown's Hole and mainly used Fort Worth as a centre. After
a last train robbery in Montana in 1901, Cassidy went to New York and thence
to South America, not to return to the United States again. In 1909 he and
the Sundance Kid were killed by Bolivian soldiers in San Vicente. Or not,
as the case may be.
The most relevant parts of this story are that Butch Cassidy was pursuing a
criminal career (actual participation in robberies excluded) in Wyoming from
about 1890 to about 1900; and that he was a cowboy, a cattleman and not a
sheep man. He was a gun for hire in Wyoming at the time of the range wars,
but we have no evidence that he actually participated in them. 13
///. Romney Marsh Sheep
One of the least startling of our discoveries in the course of this important
research has been that Kent or Romney Marsh sheep come from Romney
Marsh, in Kent. Apart from Soay sheep, they may be the oldest breed in
the country. They are said to be of Roman origin though there appears to
have been an infusion of Leicester and Cheviot stock at some time. No
doubt natural selection played a great part in developing their particular
characteristics, and the unyielding and unchanging conditions of the Marsh,
to which they are ideally suited, has kept them that way.
Most English lawyers know of the Romney Marshes because of the Laws of
13 This, and the preceding three sections, are based mainly on: M.L. Ryder, Sheep and Man (1983);
Mari Sandoz, The Cattle Men (1961); Paul I. Wellman, The Trampling Herd (1958 ed.); Robert Elman,
Badmen of the West (New York, 1974); Will Henry, Alias Butch Cassidy (New York, 1967).