Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler

Personal Recollections of Pardee
Butler

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Title: Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler
Author: Pardee Butler Edited with reminiscences by Mrs. Rosetta B.
Hastings Contributors: Elder John Boggs, Elder J. B. McCleery
Release Date: July 21, 2004 [EBook #12973]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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BUTLER ***

Scanned by Roger Taft, great-grandson of the author. Produced for PG
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[Frontispiece: Pardee Butler]
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS

OF
PARDEE BUTLER
WITH REMINISCENCES, BY HIS DAUGHTER,
MRS. ROSETTA B. HASTINGS
AND ADDITIONAL CHAPTERS
ELD. JOHN BOGGS AND ELD. J. B. MCCLEERY.
CINCINNATI
STANDARD PUBLISHING COMPANY
1889

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 assistance.

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 shingles, 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 hardship 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