Elizabeth Bassett (cattle rustler)

Born in Magnet Cove, Arkansas, and raised by her maternal grandparents, Bassett grew up in an equestrian household and community.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were close family friends of the Bassetts, and often stayed and worked at the ranch to "cool down" following their illegal escapades.

Her other grandfather William Chamberlain lived just up the road, but was widowed before Mary Eliza was born, and would not have been considered suitable to raise two granddaughters.

But she neither faltered, nor gazed longingly back to those early experiences, when her life's connections were broken by the Civil War.

She looked ahead, seeing adventure and alluring excitement as my father's helpmeet and companion in the new West.In 1868, Mary Eliza Chamberlain met Amos Herbert Bassett, a former Union soldier, when he arrived in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

[8] Only a few years later, they headed west via train to Rock Springs, Wyoming,[6][9] and then south along the Green River, where they visited Herbert's brother Samuel Clark Bassett,[1] who was a United States government scout along the Overland Trail.

[6][9] In 1877, the Bassett family, which now included daughter Josie and son Sam, moved to the rugged frontier area of Browns Park, known for "cattle rustling and outlaw sheltering".

She relied on Isam Dart,[9] who was a ranch hand who also cooked meals, washed laundry, cut wood, and performed other household duties for the family.

[10] Josie and Ann attended Miss Porter's select Finishing School for Girls in Boston for a proper education, and they were also proficient horseback riders and ropers.

The house was partially furnished from belongings that she inherited from her Arkansas grandfather's estate, combined with furniture hand-made locally of wood, leather, and buckskin.

[1] Following the Meeker Massacre (1879), Herbert took the children to Rock Springs in Wyoming to avoid hostilities between the Ute People and the United States government.

The large concerns, backed by the influential Wyoming Stock Growers Association, sought to create a poor opinion of the smaller ranches in the press by claiming that they were cattle rustlers.

[9] According to John Rolfe Burroughs, author of Where the Old West Stayed Young, "Technically, rustling cattle was a felony offense.