Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler Part 1

Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler.

Author: Pardee Butler Edited with reminiscences by Mrs. Rosetta B. Hastings Contributors: Elder John Boggs, Elder J. B. McCleery.

PREFACE.

I have not attempted to write a complete biography of my father, but merely to supplement his "Recollections" with a few of my own reminiscences. He was a man who said little in his family about his early years, or about any of the occurrences of his eventful life. Nor did he ever keep any journal, or any account of his meetings, or of the number that he baptized. He seldom reported his meetings to the newspapers. I think it was only during the few years that he was employed by missionary societies, that he ever made reports of what he accomplished. He had even destroyed the most of his old letters. And so, for nearly all information outside of my own recollections, I have been indebted to the kindness of relatives and friends.

The later chapters have been written by men who knew my father intimately, and men whose reputations are such as to give weight to their testimony.

To all of these friends I now offer my thanks for their kind a.s.sistance.

And to the public I offer this book, not for its literary merit, but as the tribute of a daughter to a loved father, whose earnest devotion to duty was worthy of imitation.

MRS. ROSETTA B. HASTINGS.

_Farmington, Kansas, April 23,1889._

INTRODUCTION

In this country inherited fortunes, or ancestral honors, have little effect on a man's reputation; but inherited disposition and early surroundings have much effect on his character.

My father's ancestors were from New England. His father, Phineas Butler, came from Saybrook, Connecticut, where the Congregational Churches framed the Saybrook platform. His mother's people, the Pardees, came from Norfork, Connecticut. The Pardees were said to have been descendants of the French Huguenots. Ebenezer Pardee emigrated to Marcellus, now known as Skaneateles, Onondaga Co., New York. There he died in 1811, leaving his wife Ann Pardee, (known for many years as grandmother Pardee) a widow, with nine sons and two daughters. The eldest daughter, Sarah Pardee, was there married in 1813, to Phineas Butler; and there my father, who was the second of seven children, was born, March 9, 1816.

In the autumn of 1818, Phineas Butler, of whom I shall hereafter speak as grandfather Butler, went to Wadsworth, Medina Co., Ohio. There a settlement had been begun three years before in the heavy timber, and there were only a few small clearings here and there in the woods.

My grandmother came on with her brother the following spring. She had three small children, but they made the journey in a sled, in bad weather, cutting their own roads, and camping in the woods at night.

Grandmother Pardee came on later. She was a woman of great energy, and brought up her sons so well that they all became leading men in the communities in which they lived. Grandmother Butler was also a capable, fearless woman, and so calm and firm that it was said no vexation was ever known to ruffle her temper.

Their cabins were built of logs, with hewed puncheon floors and doors; and on the roof, in the place of nailed s.h.i.+ngles, were split shakes, fastened on with poles and wooden pins. But grandfather had brought a few nails (made by a blacksmith) from New York, and used them in his house. When a neighbor died they hewed out puncheons to make a coffin, and finding only eighteen nails in the neighborhood, grandfather, by torchlight, pulled fourteen more out of his house to finish the coffin.

Their lives were full of hards.h.i.+p and privation. Grandfather was a famous hunter, and his well aimed rifle sometimes furnished game that kept the neighborhood from starvation. He was dependent on bartering furs at some distant trading post, for his supplies of salt, needles, ammunition and other necessary articles that could not be made at home.

Often, after a hard day's work, he hunted half of the night to obtain c.o.o.nskins and other furs. Father said that one night grandfather and Orin Loomis were out hunting c.o.o.ns with the dogs, having taken their axes to chop down c.o.o.n trees, but no guns, when they found a bear, on a small island, in the middle of a swamp. But I find his bear story so well told in the "_Wadsworth Memorial_" that I will quote from that:

"In the fall of 1823, as Butler and Loomis were returning after midnight from one of their hunts, and had arrived within a mile or two of home it was noticed that the dogs were missing. Presently a noise was heard, far back in the rear.

"'Hark! What was that?' said Loomis. They listened awhile, and agreed it was dogs, sure.

"'Orr, let's go back,' said Butler.

"'No, it is too late,' answered Loomis.

"'But,' said Butler, 'I'll warrant the dogs are after a bear; don't you hear old Beaver? It sounds to me like the bark of old Beaver when he is after a bear.'

"Butler was bound to go back, and so they started. The scene of the disturbance was finally reached, after traveling two or three miles. The dogs had found a bear; but it was in the middle of Long Swamp, and the alders were so thick that there was scarcely room for man, dog or bear to get through. This did not deter Phin. Butler, however. They got near enough to find that the bear was stationed on a spot a little drier than the main swamp, surrounded by alder bushes, and that she was determined not to leave it. The dogs would bay up close, when the old bear would run out after them. They would retreat, and then she would run back to her nest again.

"'We can't kill her to-night,' said Loomis, 'we will have to go home and come down again in the morning.'

"'No,' replied Butler, 'I am afraid she will get away. We can kill her to-night, I guess. You can go and hiss on the dogs on one side, and I will come up on the other; and when she runs out after them, I'll cut her back-bone off with the ax.'

"They concluded to try this plan, and came very near succeeding. As the old bear rushed past, Butler put the whole bit of the ax into her back, but failed to cut the back-bone by an inch or two. Enraged and desperate, she sprang upon the dogs, who, emboldened by the presence of their masters, came too close. With one of her enormous paws she came down on old Beaver, making a large wound in his side, which nearly killed him. He was hardly able to crawl out of the swamp.

"The fight was then abandoned until morning, as without Beaver to lead the dogs it was useless to proceed. It was difficult to get the old dog home, but he finally got well. Early in the morning the hunters were on the ground. This time they had their guns with them, but found the old bear was gone. On examining her nest of the night before, her unusual ferocity was explained. She had a litter of cubs, which, however, she had succeeded in removing, and must have carried them off in her mouth.

In a short time the dogs had tracked her out. She was found a half mile lower down the swamp, where she had a new nest. Butler's rifle soon dispatched her; but her cubs, four in number, and not more than three or four weeks old, were taken alive, and kept for pets."

Father said that he could remember when they brought the bears home, growling, snarling--the crossest little things he ever saw.

Strange as it may seem, my father did not inherit grandfather's love for hunting. I never saw him shoot a gun, and he has never owned one within my recollection.

Orin Loomis was often heard to say that Phin. Butler was the most courageous man he ever knew. He was quick-tempered, but warm-hearted, and full of fun, and as honest and sincere as he was bold and fearless.

One time he was traveling, and stopped at a tavern. The strangers present were discussing the statement that every man has his price, and each man was telling what was the least price for which he would tell a lie. Finally one man said that he would tell a lie for five dollars.

Grandfather's impetuous nature could stand it no longer, and he burst out scornfully: "Tell a lie! Tell a lie for five dollars! Sell your manhood! Sell your soul for five dollars! You must rate yourself very cheap!" And then, they said, he fairly preached them a sermon on the n.o.bility of perfect truthfulness, and the littleness and meanness of lying and deceitfulness.

My grandmother was also very conscientious, which was ill.u.s.trated by the fact that on her death-bed, after giving some good advice to her daughters, she charged them to carry home a cup of coffee that she had borrowed.

An old Wadsworth friend, writing to us since father's death, says of him: "From a boy Pardee was remarkable for his uprightness, and bold and strict honesty, and it was a maxim among the boys to say, 'As honest as Pard, Butler.' He and his father before him were specimens of puritanical honesty and courage, and had they lived in the days of Cromwell and in England, would doubtless have been in Cromwell's army."

Scarcely was the settlement begun when a school was taught in one room of a log dwelling-house. When but three years old, father was a pupil in the first school that was taught in the new school-house, by Miss Lodema Sackett, and continued to attend school a part of every year. Books were scarce, but he was fond of reading, and read, over and over, all that he could obtain.

The Western Reserve was settled mainly by New Englanders, who were intelligent and G.o.d-fearing men; and religious meetings were held from the first; printed sermons being read aloud when there was no preacher.

A Sunday-school was organized in Wadsworth in 1820.

The most influential man in the neighborhood was Judge Brown, an uncle of "John Brown of Ossawatomie." He was noted for the purity of his life, the dignity of his demeanor, and the firmness with which he defended his views. He was a bitter opponent of slavery, and, what was strange in those days, a strong temperance man. Before leaving Connecticut he had heard Lyman Beecher deliver his famous temperance sermons, and he came to Wadsworth with his soul ablaze with temperance zeal. The community was strongly influenced by him, and father said that he was much indebted to Judge Brown for his temperance and anti-slavery principles.

Even in those early days Wadsworth contained a public library, a lyceum where the young men discussed the questions of the day, and an academy.

Father took part in the lyceum debates, though he was said to be slow of speech; and attended the Wadsworth Academy from its beginning, in 1830.

One of its most successful teachers was a shrewd Scotchman named John McGregor. Father and several young men from a distance, who boarded at grandfather's and attended this school, spent their evenings studying their lessons, or reading and discussing some good book. d.i.c.k's scientific works were among the books thus read.

There were many Lutherans, Dutch Reformers, and Mennonites near Wadsworth, and there was a perfect ferment of religious discussion.

During father's boyhood, Alexander Campbell and Walter Scott had been preaching the union of Christians on the Bible alone, and there was great enthusiasm.

Eld. Newcomb, an honored Baptist preacher, together with my grandfather, and Samuel Green--the father of Almon B. Green and Philander Green--had been reading the writings of A. Campbell for several years. Almon B.

Green had been made skeptical by the unintelligible orthodox preaching.

But one day, after reading the first four books of the New Testament, he exclaimed, "No uninspired man ever wrote that book." He read on until he came to Acts ii. 38, which he took to Eld. Newcomb, asking him its meaning. "It means what it says," was his reply. In a few days Almon was baptized by Eld. Newcomb, simply on his confession of faith in Christ, without telling any experience, as usually required by the Baptists.

Soon afterwards four families, the New-combs, Greens, Butlers and Bonnels, all Baptists, united to form a church on the apostolic pattern.

Then William Hayden came with his fiery eloquence and wondrous songs; the people were stirred up, opposition aroused, the various creeds were discussed with renewed energy, and the church grew and multiplied.

But father and his uncle Aaron, who was eight years older than himself, had been made skeptical by orthodox mysticism and the disputes of so many wrangling churches.

In September, 1833, A. Campbell came to Wadsworth to attend a great yearly meeting held in William Eyle's barn. The following account of an incident that occurred at that time, I quote from "History of the Disciples on the Western Reserve."

"An incident occurred at this time which displays Mr Campbell's character for discernment and candor. Aaron Pardee, a gentleman residing in the vicinity, an unbeliever in the gospel, attracted by Campbell's abilities as a reasoner, and won by his fairness in argument, resolved to obtain an interview and propose freely his difficulties. Mr. Campbell received him with such frankness that he opened his case at once, saying, 'I discover, Mr. Campbell, you are well prepared in the argument and defenses of the Christian religion. I confess to you frankly there are some difficulties in my mind which prevent my believing the Bible, particularly the Old Testament.'