Pardee Butler
Encyclopedia
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. He is remembered in Kansas history for being set adrift on the Missouri River
Missouri River
The Missouri River flows through the central United States, and is a tributary of the Mississippi River. It is the longest river in North America and drains the third largest area, though only the thirteenth largest by discharge. The Missouri's watershed encompasses most of the American Great...
on a raft by pro-slavery men for his abolitionist beliefs.
Early life
Pardee Butler’s ancestors were from New England. His parents are Phineas Butler and Sarah Pardee. Pardee was born in 1816. In 1818 the family moved west to Wadsworth, Medina County, Ohio in the Western Reserve. In 1839 the family moved to the Sandusky Plains in northwestern Ohio where Pardee met his future wife Sibjl [sic] Carleton. They were married August 17, 1843. Pardee farmed for a living and preached for his beliefs. He developed quinsy (an abscess of the tonsils) that caused him to give up preaching and move to Cedar County, IowaCedar County, Iowa
-2010 census:The 2010 census recorded a population of 13,956 in the county, with a population density of . There were 8,064 housing units, of which 7,511 were occupied.-2000 census:...
in 1850 to improve his health. Over the next several years he preached in various places in Illinois and Missouri and in early 1855 came to Kansas.
Famous episodes
Kansas in the 1850s was a territory with strong sentiment on both sides of the slavery issue. Butler obtained a claim to 160 aces of land, twelve miles from Atchison, on the banks of the Stranger Creek. His great-great-grandson farms the land to this day. In June, Butler preached the first sermon in Kansas by a Christian minister.By the middle of August Butler had built a cabin and stopped in Atchison on his way back to Illinois to fetch his family. It was there that the rafting episode took place on August 18, 1855. In addition to Butler’s first-hand account of the episode in his Recollections, Cutler's History of the State of Kansas discusses the episode in his chapter on the border ruffian warfare.
While in Atchison Butler went to the offices of the Squatter Sovereign to get some extra copies to show his friends in Illinois. Butler was waited on by Robert S. Kelley and took the opportunity to announce his free-state views. Kelley organized a meeting that night and the next day Kelley and his cohorts accosted Butler and demanded he sign a string of resolutions denouncing free State men. He refused. A large crowd gathered. Matters were debated. Eventually ....
a vote was taken upon the mode of punishment which ought to be accorded to him [Butler], and to this day it is probably known but to few persons that a decided verdict of death by hanging was rendered; and furthermore, that Mr. Kelley, the teller, by making false returns to the excited mob, save Mr. Butler’s life... the pro-slavery party decided to send Mr. Butler down the Missouri River on a raft.
Gentlemen, if I am drowned [he could not swim] I forgive you; but I have this to say to you: If you are not ashamed of your part in this transaction, I am not ashamed of mine. Good-by.
Butler cut off the flag and using the flag staff as a paddle made his way to the Kansas shore. The rafting episode was widely publicized and made clear that “... the country was full of men that were ready to fight.”
The following spring on April 30, 1856 Butler passed through Atchison on his way back to his homestead from more preaching in Illinois. He was spotted by Kelley and was again soon the target of an angry mob who wanted to shoot or hang him. After much discussion a punishment of tarring and feathering substituted. Butler’s account of this episode appeared in several papers of the times.
The passions of which Butler was a victim continued to ferment in Kansas and the rest of the country and soon led to the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
.
Later life
After the Civil War, Butler continued to preach and farm and turned from the abolitionist movement to the temperance movement. He spent much time writing and lecturing on temperance, both before and after the passage of a Prohibitory Amendment to the Kansas state constitution. The Atchison Daily Globe of the 1880s contains several of his polemics.On September 19, 1888, as Butler was dismounting a colt that refused to be bridled he was kicked in the right foot crushing the ankle. The family feared no worse than a crippled ankle. The first week was hopeful. The second week he was delirious. He soon fell into an unconsious stuper and died on October 19 at the age of seventy-two.
Politics
The Republican PartyRepublican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
was begun in the early 1850s by anti-slavery activists. Pardee Butler was one of the organizers of the Republican Party in Kansas in May and June 1856. In 1856 the Republicans became a national party when John C. Fremont
John C. Frémont
John Charles Frémont , was an American military officer, explorer, and the first candidate of the anti-slavery Republican Party for the office of President of the United States. During the 1840s, that era's penny press accorded Frémont the sobriquet The Pathfinder...
was nominated for President. In 1860 Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
became the first Republican president.
There is a family story about Pardee Butler and Abraham Lincoln that is related by Heywood Broun
Heywood Broun
Heywood Campbell Broun, Jr. was an American journalist. He worked as a sportswriter, newspaper columnist, and editor in New York City. He founded the American Newspaper Guild, now known as The Newspaper Guild. Born in Brooklyn, New York, he is best remembered for his writing on social issues and...
in one of his It Seems to Me columns that appeared in the New York Graphic
New York Graphic
The New York Evening Graphic was a tabloid newspaper published from 1924 to 1932 by Bernarr "Bodylove" Macfadden...
in March 1936.
The Rev. Pardee Butler was a mighty man in debate and a most skillful propagandist. He wrote the free soil constitution for the State of Kansas, and in the eyes of some historians he is identified as the actual founder of the Republican party.... His family treasures an anecdote of his return home after an oratorical foray.
“Were there any other speakers?" asked his wife.
“Other speakers!" snorted the Rev. Pardee Butler, who was accustomed to open and close meetings himself. But then he was reminded of an incident. "Oh, yes," he said, "when I got done we heard a few words from a young Springfield lawyer named Lincoln."
Butler was active in the presidential campaign of 1872 speaking at the Republican State Congressional Convention at Lawrence and serving as an elector.
Though often urged by his friends to run for office, Butler invariably refused telling them “...he considered the office of a Christian preacher the highest office on earth.”