Cassie Chadwick (born Elizabeth Bigley)

Cassie Chadwick

(10 October 1857 - 10 October 1907)

Notorious Confidence Woman

Born as Elizabeth Bigley in East Oxford Township, Oxford County, Ontario, Canada. Daughter of Mary Ann and Daniel Bigley, natives of England.

Canadian-born scheister who died in an American prison.

A confidence woman of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who went by numerous aliases:

Elizabeth Cunard
Emily Heathcliff
Lydia DeVere
Lydia Springsteen           
Marie LaRose
Cassie Hoover
Cassie Chadwick
Cassie L. Chadwick

Her most famous con was a the illegitimate daughter of wealthy industrialist, philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Of course, they weren't at all related but she bilked banks out of millions with the claim that her "father" would back her debts.

She died of illness on her 50th birthday in the Ohio State Penitentiary, in Columbus, Ohio, USA, after her life of extensive criminality.

She is interred in her Canadian hometown in Anglican Cemetery, Woodstock, Oxford County, Ontario, Canada.


Note: Cassie Chadwick wasn't specifically a woman of the old west but she was moving herself westward (Boston to New York to Cleveland) in her life of crime and swindles when she was stopped by a prison sentence.