Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler Part 5

When Bro. Elliott and myself had left the house, and were in the open air, he clutched me nervously by the arm and said: "Bro. Butler! Bro.

Butler! You must not do such things; they will kill you!"

I replied: "If they do I can not help it."

Bro. E. was now to go home. But before going he besought me with earnest entreaty not to bring down on my own head the vengeance of these men. I thanked him for his regard for me, and we bade each other good-by.

Bro. E. had come to feel that my life was precious to the Christian brethren in Atchison county. Except myself they had no preacher, and they needed a preacher.

The steamboat bound for St. Louis that day had been detained, and would not arrive until the next day. I must, therefore, stay over night in Atchison. I conversed freely with the people that afternoon, and said to them: "Under the Kansas-Nebraska bill, we that are free State men have as good a right to come to Kansas as you have; and we have as good a right to speak our sentiments as you have."

A public meeting was called that night to consider my case, but I did not know it. The steamboat was expected about noon the next day. I had been sitting writing letters at the head of the stairs, in the chamber of the boarding-house where I had slept, and heard some one call my name, and rose up to go down stairs; but was met by six men, bristling with revolvers and bowie-knives, who came up stairs and into my room.

The leader was Robert S. Kelley. They presented me a string of resolutions, denouncing free State men in unmeasured terms, and demanded that I should sign them. I felt my heart flutter, and knew if I should undertake to speak my voice would tremble, and determined to gain time.

Sitting down I pretended to read the resolutions--they were familiar to me, having been already printed in the _Squatter Sovereign_--and finally I began to read them aloud. But these men were impatient, and said: "We just want to know will you sign these resolutions?" I had taken my seat by a window, and looking out and down into the street, had seen a great crowd a.s.sembled, and determined to get among them. Whatever should be done-would better be done in the presence of witnesses. I said not a word, but going to the head of the stairs, where was my writing-stand and pen and ink, I laid the paper down and quickly walked down stairs and into the street. Here they caught me by the wrists, from behind, and demanded, "Will you sign?" I answered, "_No_," with emphasis. I had got my voice by that time. They dragged me down to the Missouri River, cursing me, and telling me they were going to drown me. But when we had got to the river they seemed to have got to the end of their programme, and there we stood. Then some little boys, anxious to see the fun go on, told me to get on a large cotton-wood stump close by and defend myself.

I told the little fellows I did not know what I was accused of yet. This broke the silence, and the men that had me in charge asked:

"Did the Emigrant Aid Society send you here?"

"No; I have no connection with the Emigrant Aid Society."

"Well, what did you come for?"

"I came because I had a mind to come. What did you come for?"

"Did you come to make Kansas a free State?"

"No, not primarily; but I shall vote to make Kansas a free State."

"Are you a correspondent of the _New York Tribune_?"

"No; I have not written a line to the _Tribune_ since I came to Kansas."

By this time a great crowd had gathered around, and each man took his turn in cross-questioning me, while I replied, as best I could, to this storm of questions, accusations and invectives. We went over the whole ground. We debated every issue that had been debated in Congress. They alleged the joint owners.h.i.+p the South had with the North in the common Territories of the nation; that slaves are property, and that they had a natural and inalienable right to take their property into any part of the national Territory, _and there to protect it by the strong right arm of power_, while I urged the terms of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and that under it free State men have a right to come into the Territory, and by their votes to make it a free State, if their votes will make it so.

At length an old man came near to me, and dropping his voice to a half-whisper, said in a confidential tone: "N-e-ow, Mr. Butler, I want to advise you as a friend, and for your own good, _when you get away, just keep away._"

I knew this man was a Yankee, for I am a Yankee myself. His name was Ira Norris. He had been given an office in Platte county, Mo., and must needs be a partisan for the peculiar inst.i.tution. I gave my friend Norris to understand that I would try to attend to my own business.

Others sought to persuade me to promise to leave the country and not come back. Then when no good result seemed to come from our talk, I said to them: "Gentlemen, there is no use in keeping up this debate any longer; if I live anywhere, I shall live in Kansas. Now do your duty as you understand it, and I will do mine as I understand it. I ask no favors of you."

Then the leaders of this business went away by themselves and held a consultation. Of course I did not know what pa.s.sed among them, but Dr.

Stringfellow afterwards made the following statement to a gentleman who was getting up a history of Kansas:

A vote was taken upon the mode of punishment which ought to be accorded to him, 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, saved Mr. Butler's life. Mr. Kelley is now a resident of Montana, and volunteered this information several years ago, while stopping at St.

Joe with the former senior editor of the _Squatter Sovereign_, Dr. J. H.

Stringfellow. At the time the pro-slavery party decided to send Mr.

Butler down the Missouri River on a raft, Dr. Stringfellow was absent as a member of the Territorial Legislature.

The crowd had now to be pacified and won over to an arrangement that should give me a chance for my life. A Mr. Peebles, a dentist from Lexington, Mo., who was working at the business of dentistry in Atchison, and himself a slave-holder, was put forward to do this work.

He said: "My friends, we must not hang this man; he is not an Abolitionist, he is what they call a Free-soiler. The Abolitionists steal our n.i.g.g.e.rs, but the Free-soilers do not do this. They intend to make Kansas a free State by legal methods. But in the outcome of the business, there is not the value of a picayune of difference between a Free-soiler and an Abolitionist; for if the Free-soilers succeed in making Kansas a free State, and thus surround Missouri with a cordon of free States, our slaves in Missouri will not be worth a dime apiece.

Still we must not hang this man; and I propose that we make a raft and send him down the river as an example."

And so to him they all agreed. Then the question came up, What kind of a raft shall it be? [1] Some said, "One log"; but the crowd decided it should be two logs fastened together. When the raft was completed I was ordered to take my place on it, after they had painted the letter R. on my forehead with black paint. This letter stood for _Rogue_. I had in my pocket a purse of gold, which I proffered to a merchant of the place, an upright business man, with the request that he would send it to my wife; but he declined to take it. He afterwards explained to me that he himself was afraid of the mob. They took a skiff and towed the raft out into the middle of the Missouri River. As we swung away from the bank, I rose up and said: "Gentlemen, if I am drowned 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."

Floating down the river, alone and helpless, I had opportunity to look about me. I had noticed that they had put up a flag on my raft, but had paid no attention to it; now I looked at it and it charged me with stealing negroes; and it was thought by many to be no sin to shoot a "n.i.g.g.e.r thief." Down that flag must come; and then I remembered that they had said they would follow me down the river and shoot me if I did pull it down. The picture on the flag was that of a white man riding at full gallop, on horseback, with a negro behind him. The flag bore this inscription: "GREELEY TO THE RESCUE: I HAVE A n.i.g.g.e.r. THE REV. MR. BUTLER, AGENT FOR THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD."

This flag I pulled down, cut off the flag with my pen-knife, and made a paddle of the flag staff, which was a small sapling which they had cut out of the brush, and was forked at the upper end. Between these forks they had carefully sewed this flag with twine, and this part of the canvas I left and made it serve as the blade of my paddle; and so in due time I paddled to the Kansas sh.o.r.e. The river was rapid, and there were in the river heaps of drift-wood, called "rack-heaps,"

dangerous places into which the water rushed with great violence; but from these I was mercifully saved, and though I could not swim, I landed a few miles below Atchison without harm or accident, and made my way to Port William, a small town about twelve miles down the river.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The flag placed on Pardee Butler's raft.]

CHAPTER VIII.

At Port William I had already become acquainted with a Bro. Hartman. He had leased a saw-mill, and was running it, and I had bought lumber of him. Having reached Port William, I went to Bro. H. and said, "I want to obtain lodging of you to-night; but as I do not want to betray any man into trouble, I must first tell you what has befallen me." I then told him my mishap at Atchison, and said: "Now if you do not want to lodge such a man, please say so, and I will go somewhere else." He replied: "You shall lodge with me if it cost me every cent I am worth." He then went on to say that he had leased that mill of men who were very bitter, and very ultra in their views, and that they might be angry with him, and turn him out of the mill. But at last he said: "There is Bro.

Oliphant living in the bluffs; he is under no such embarra.s.sment," and Bro. Hartman took me there. The next day was the Lord's day, and Oliver Steele was to preach the first sermon in that little village on that day. Oliver Steele was a notable citizen of Platte county, Missouri. His name appears in the early days of the _Millennial Harbinger_ as a citizen of Madison county, Kentucky. Bro. Steele complains of the Reformers of Kentucky, that they are too much wedded to Old Baptist usages to be true to the primitive and apostolic order of things. Then Bro. Steele came to Platte county, Missouri, and had become one of its most wealthy and influential citizens. He was an eminent example of a courtly and courteous "Old Virginia gentleman," and was loved by the rich and loved by the poor, he was loved by white folks and black; loved by the mothers and their babies; and the people patronized his preaching, not because he was a great preacher, for he certainly was not, but because they loved the man. He was an old Henry Clay Whig, and like that great Kentucky statesman was an Emanc.i.p.ationist. Bro. S. was to come over the river and preach the first sermon in this new town, and it was a great event to the people. On returning to Port William in the morning Bro. Hartman said that I must take dinner with him, and he would introduce me to Bro. Steele. It was not until twenty-five years afterwards, and only after Sister Hartman had died, that Bro. Hartman told me what so much altered his feelings. She was a sweet Christian woman, and when Bro. H. went to her she said to him: "Husband, don't you know that in the last great day the Lord will say, 'I was a stranger and ye took me in'; and don't you remember how the good Samaritan showed mercy to the man that fell among thieves? Now we believe that this man is an innocent man; and what will the Lord say to us if we turn him out of doors?"

At dinner, at the house of Bro. Hartman, was also Dr. Oliphant, father of the Bro. Oliphant with whom I had lodged. He was a brusque, blunt-spoken, honest, anti-slavery Northern Methodist preacher. He said bluntly at the table: "Well, Mr. Butler, they treated you rather roughly at At-Atchison, did they not?" I said, "Yes--" attempted to say more, broke down and left the table, and went out of the house. My heart was not as hard here, among sympathizing friends, as it had been the day before, when I had to face a raging mob. When I returned no mother could be more tender seeking out the hurt of her boy bruised in a rough encounter with his fellows, than was Oliver Steele. He would hear the whole story, sighed over these "evil days," and listened with approval to the vindication I made of the purposes of the free State men. How many men that, through a sense of bitter wrong, are in danger to become desperate, could be won to a better temper the world has never fully tried.

The news of what had been done at Atchison flew like wild-fire through the country. This proved the last feather that broke the camel's back.

It became apparent that the country was full of men that were ready to fight. As for my friend Caleb May, he went into Atchison and said: "_I am a free State man: now raft me_!" As no one seemed inclined to undertake that job, he faithfully promised them that if there was any more of that business done he would go over into Missouri and raise a company of men and clean out the town.

Meantime my friends at Port William provided means to send me down to Weston, there to take the steamboat Polar Star, bound for St. Louis.

"Boycotting" was a word unknown to the English language at that time; and yet I was "boycotted" on board the steamboat. I heard nothing--not a word; and yet I could feel it. I had hoped to be a total stranger, but it was evident I was not, and the most comfort I could find was to keep my state-room, and employ my time writ ing out the appeal I intended to make to the people, through the _Missouri Democrat_, published in St.

Louis. At length my work was done, and yet we were only half way to St.

Louis. The reader will believe that my reflections were not cheerful.

What would become of myself? What would become of my wife and children?

What would become of Kansas, or of the United States?

At Jefferson City a man had come aboard of the boat who seemed almost as much alone as myself. Still the captain and officers of the boat paid him marked attention. One thing I noticed, he abounded in newspapers, and I wanted something to read that should save me from my own reflections. I ventured to ask him for the loan of some of his papers; then when I returned them he went to his trunk and took out a book of travels and gave it to me, saying: "Take that, please. It will amuse you." At length we could see the smoke of the city of St. Louis, and I gave back to this stranger the book he had loaned me. He said: "No, thank you." I was startled, and said with some surprise: "I do not know why you should do this to a stranger." He laughed and said: "You are not so much a stranger as you think. Your name is Butler, is it not?"

"Yes."

"And they mobbed you at Atchison?"

"Yes."

"Well, please call on me at the office of the _Missouri Democrat."_

"And what is your name?"

"_They call me B. Gratz Brown_".

And so Providence had prepared the way for making my appeal to the people. B. Gratz Brown had the preceding winter, at Jefferson City, either given or accepted a challenge to fight a duel; but the public authorities had interfered, and some business connected with this matter had called him to Jefferson City. But whence had he his knowledge of the mobbing at Atchison? The _Squatter Sovereign_ had been issued immediately after they had put me on the raft, and had contained the following editorial:

On Thursday last [it was Friday], one Pardee Butler arrived in town with a view of starting for the East, probably with the purpose of getting a fresh supply of Free-soilers from the penitentiaries and pestholes in the Northern States. Finding it inconvenient to depart before the morning, he took lodgings at the hotel and proceeded to visit numerous portions of our town, everywhere avowing himself a Free-soiler, and preaching Abolition heresies. He declared the recent action of our citizens in regard to J. W. B. Kelley the infamous proceedings of a mob, at the same time stating that many persons in Atchison who were Free-soilers at heart had been intimidated thereby, and prevented from avowing their true sentiments; but that he (Butler) would express his views in defiance of the whole community.