Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler

In the spring of 1860 father rented his farm, so that he could devote his whole time to preaching. He built a house in Pardee, that we might live near school and meeting until G...

Although our dear departed brother, Elder Pardee Butler, was never classed with the Garrisonian Abolitionists, he began his ministerial life when the demands of the South were b...

When father went back to Illinois, after he was rafted, we visited for several weeks among the churches where he had preached. Then we returned with him to Kansas, to visit my u...

When the Central Branch Railroad was built the little town of Farmington was laid out, a mile to the northwest of father's house--Pardee being two miles to the southeast. Many o...

In presenting this analysis it is by no means thought to be complete. There are many phases of his well-known character left untouched, because this chapter would become a book,...

From Ripley I went to Mt. Sterling, the county-seat of Brown County. This church had fallen into decay for want of the care of a competent evangelist. Here I remained some weeks...

Rev. Pardee Butler, who died at his old home, near Farmington, on Saturday last, was, for a full generation past, one of the most prominent figures in Kansas history. He was a m...

In 1862 our yearly meeting was held at Emporia, and in 1863 at Ottumwa. These meetings were little better than failures. Yearly district meetings were kept up in Northeastern Ka...

Immediately on obtaining my claim, brethren had sought me out and made my acquaintance, and soon it appeared that there were enough Disciples in the settlement to constitute a c...

One circumstance at last brought to a sudden close Gov. Geary's term of office. When he had disbanded the three thousand "Law and Order" militia that were to attack Lawrence, th...

Whatever may have been thought by a certain class of men, when the writer began his work in Kansas, it is now universally admitted among the Disciples that temperance work is le...

We have already told how Sheriff Jones failed to wipe out Lawrence; how Gov. Shannon patched up a peace, and how that, in no good temper, the "Law and Order" party returned to t...

We have already told how the campaign was opened, in the spring of 1856, in Atchison county, in a letter which we at that time addressed to the editor of the _Herald of Freedom_...

There had come to the Big Springs Convention two brethren--Father Gillespie and his son, William Gillespie, living at St. George, on the Kansas River, fifty miles above Topeka a...

The same causes that have made me a preacher, have also made me an abundant contributor to our periodical literature. As I wish to present a living picture of these early days,...

Father again preached in Illinois from October, 1857, until New Year. He preached in Pardee the rest of the winter; but in the spring he began traveling and preaching in various...

It was now the middle of August. My cabin was completed, and I was ready to go back and bring Mrs. Butler and the children to Kansas. Bro. Elliott accompanied me to Atchison, wh...

When the news came of the sacking of Lawrence, the great mass of the squatters had not yet lost faith in the nation, nor had they lost hope that justice would be done, tardy tho...

Gov. Geary, sick in body and sick at heart, had left the Territory in fear of private assassination, his best friends at Lecompton being the treason prisoners. These, with somet...

In the year 1865 the State meeting was held at Prairie City. Meantime, however, a vigorous local district organization had been maintained from the first in Northeastern Kansas....

This reformation in the rapidity of its growth is without parallel in the history of Protestant parties. Those acquainted with its history need not be told that a large number o...

In 1859 I only spent part of the year preaching in Kansas. At the earnest solicitation of Ovid Butler, the founder and munificent patron of Butler University, I spent six months...

The reader has already heard of Big Springs as a locality where Free State Conventions were wont to be held. Lawrence and Topeka were twenty-five miles apart, and both were on t...

The winter of 1855-6 that I spent in Illinois was uneventful. My success was not such as to discourage an evangelist that desires to be useful, neither was it such as to fill hi...

_Resolved_, That Messrs. Topliff, Hutchingson and Roberts constitute a committee to inform His Excellency of these facts, and to call upon him, in the name of the people of Lawr...

The news of the coming of the South Carolinians had not reached Illinois when I started for Kansas, but when I had reached Western Missouri the country was alive with excitement...

SIR:--Last night I, with a posse of ten men, arrested one Jacob Branson, by virtue of a peace warrant regularly issued, who, on our return, was rescued by a party of _forty men_...

I came to Kansas in the spring of 1855, having been preaching in that part of Illinois known as the Military Tract, during the three preceding years; but my residence was in Ced...

The Convention that had been called to frame a State Constitution, and in which election the Free State men had taken no part, had met to do its work in September of 1857, and f...

The men that had settled in Kansas were generally poor, and few had any reserved fund from which to draw their support, but were literally dependent for their daily bread on the...

After crossing the Missouri River I visited some of the principal settlements in the Territory, such as Atchison, Leaven worth, Lawrence and Topeka. Lawrence, Topeka and Manhatt...

Professor William H. Whitsitt, of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, at Louisville, Ky., has written a book that has for its leading feature to make it appear that the D...

When Sheriff Jones saw that the control of this business was being taken out of the hands of himself and his fellow-conspirators he wrote the following letter to Gov. Shannon:

That sermon was preached almost thirty-three years ago. It was an extemporaneous discourse, and no notes were preserved. Nevertheless, there were circumstances attending its del...

The steamer, Star of the West, having on board seventy-eight Chicago Abolitionists, was overhauled at Lexington, Mo., and the company disarmed. A large number of rifles and pist...

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...

The brethren in Illinois were at the first amazed at what they heard, and did not know what to think or say. Before they could make up their minds, the following editorial appea...

In the month of August, 1856, a company of so-called Territorial Militia established themselves at Hickory Point, Jefferson county, about twenty miles north of Lawrence, and pro...

Gov. Geary had won ripe and rich honors from the people of this nation in the official positions he had heretofore held, and which he had discharged with such eminent ability. T...

It is now one-third of a century since Kansas began to be settled. Great as has been the progress of the States of this Union within this period, the progress of Kansas has been...

Gov. Shannon left the Territory a disgraced and ruined man. He had proved himself, both to the Free State party and the Law and Order party, a broken staff that pierces the hand...

It is said, "There are two sides to every question." In my association with men in the free States I had learned one side of this question; now I was learning the other side, an...