REMINISCENCES--CONTINUED.
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 George should be old enough to do
the work on the farm. There was plenty of open prairie to pasture the
cows, and George and I tended them, while mother made cheese to help
support the family.
Father traveled and preached almost constantly that summer, sometimes
alone, sometimes in company with Bro. Hutchinson.
At many of the points at which he organized churches, the old members
are now either dead or scattered. But Bro. John A. Campbell, of Big
Springs, where he built up a strong church, writes as follows of his
work there:
He told me that his first visit to Big Springs was in May,
1858. My first recollection of him was that he preached
there on the 4th day of July, of that year, when he
organized the church with twenty-eight members, my father
(L. R. Campbell) and C. M. Mock being appointed elders.
His subject on that occasion was the "Unity of all
Christians," and he spoke with great power. He again
preached there on the 29th day of August, 1858, and his
subject was "Faith." On that day the first addition to the
church was made by baptism. He continued to preach for the
church about once each month through 1858-9, and a part of
1860. During that time very many were added, but I have no
means of knowing the number. In the fall of 1859 he held a
successful protracted meeting, and another in the winter
with Bro. G. W. Hutchinson. In 1860, he was at the State
meeting at Big Springs, at which the ground plan of our
present co-operative plan of missionary work was laid.
There was also raised at that meeting money to buy a large
tent, with which Bro. Butler was to travel and preach as
State evangelist. Again, in the year 1877 or 1878 he
preached once per month at Big Springs and some adjacent
points--once on the Waukarusa, oft the subject of the
Seventh-day Sabbath, out of which grew a correspondence
for a debate, but it was not; held, owing to a failure to
get a suitable house.
In the forepart of December past our church held a
memorial service for him, and many pleasant things about
his relation to dear brethren and sisters were spoken of.
The relation between him and myself was always very
pleasant, and I delight to bear testimony to his great
ability and grand life and character. I regarded him as my
father in the gospel, and he was a source of great help
and strength to me.
The tent of which Bro. Campbell speaks was made by the ladies in the
Pardee school-house. In size it was forty by sixty feet, the roof
being shaped like the roof of a house. The second State meeting, and
many district meetings, were held in it; and father used it in his
meetings for nearly ten years, when it was finally torn up by a storm.
In the fall of 1860 the Missionary Society wished him to visit Indiana
again, to stir up an interest, and collect his salary. I find no
report of his work that winter, except this item from one of his
letters: "There have been seventeen additions at meetings which I have
recently attended--six at Brownsburg, Hendricks county, and eleven at
Springville, Lawrence county, Ind."
I have found the note-book which he kept from November, 1860, to
November, 1861, in which I find this account: He received #368.50;
traveling expenses, $72.55, leaving for his year's work, $295.95. That
was the year of the "drouth," and he apprised the brethren where he
preached of the destitution in Kansas. Dr. S. G. Moore and my uncle,
Prof. N. Dunshee, of Pardee, had been appointed to receive
contributions for destitute brethren; and they reported the receipt
and distribution of $670.96, besides boxes of clothing.
After father's return, in March, 1861, he traveled almost constantly.
I have found, in the note-book mentioned above, the time and place,
and either the subject or text of each sermon he preached that year,
one hundred and fifty-three in all. Here are some of the subjects
named: "The Gospel;" "Christian Union;" "Kings of Israel;" "Noah and
the Deluge;" "Types of the Law;" "For What Did Jesus Die?" "Baptism,
its Authority and Design;" "From Whence Ami? and Whither Am I Going?"
"The Material Results of Christianity;" and "The Kingdom of Heaven."
Father had spent all of the money that was due him from property sold
in Iowa, except a thousand dollars, with which he intended to pay his
debts, and finish paying for land in Kansas. While he was in Indiana
that spring that amount was forwarded in a draft to mother. The war
was just breaking out, and by the time she could write to father and
receive his instructions as to its disposal, the bank broke, and he
lost a large part of it. He had already been running in debt for
necessary expenses, hoping each year that his support would be
increased, and the loss in the bank threw him so much in debt that he
felt it would be impossible for him to preach much longer.
In September, 1861, he attended the State meeting in Prairie City. On
Thursday the meeting was held in an empty store-room, for the poles
had not yet been cut to raise the tent. After some preliminary
business father made a short speech, telling them that he must soon
quit preaching for them. He told them how necessary it was that
churches should be planted at once in this new State, and how he had
tried in vain to arouse the brethren at the East to their
responsibility in the matter, but that he was at last obliged to give
up and go to work, like an honest man, and pay his debts. He told them
how he had loved the work, and how willingly he had toiled and
suffered hardships, and begged them to hold out faithfully and do what
they could; and when his debts were paid, he would return again to the
work. When he closed his hearers were nearly all in tears.
Many went long distances to that meeting, the brethren and sisters
from Emporia going in a covered wagon, and camping out on the road.
Father continued to preach, however, much of the time that winter.
That part of his farm that was improved was rented for five years, and
he had no money to improve the rest. The renter proved an indifferent
farmer, and the rent scarcely sufficed to pay the taxes and winter the
cattle. So father entered the only paying business, that of
freighting, as he relates in Chap XXXI. Perhaps some may think from
reading that chapter that he only took one trip, but he crossed the
plains five times. He first went in the spring of 1862, in Bro.
Butcher's train, taking George, who was only ten years old, along to
drive one of his teams, because he could not afford to hire a driver.
It was a hard, monotonous life, driving all day and camping at night
through all weather; but the hardest part of it was that men and boys
all had to take their turn standing guard over their cattle at night.
After Bro. Butcher was taken sick on that first trip, father acted as
his boss, and on all his later trips he went as wagon-boss of some
large train owned by Atchison freighters, also taking along two teams
of his own.
The wagon-bosses were frequently rough, overbearing men, who not only
went armed, but who often treated their drivers tyrannically. They not
only cowed the boys with abusive language, but with frequent threats
of whipping, or shooting, which they sometimes fulfilled.
Father never carried arms about his person in any of his trips across
the plains. But there was something in his quiet, determined manner
that enabled him to rule even the most headstrong of the wild young
fellows who usually drove the freighting teams. He was once traveling
along, for a short time, in company with a train much larger than his
own, whose wagon-boss was a big, burly, swaggering fellow, who was
drunk much of the time. Each train was driving along behind it such
oxen as were unfit for work, and some of the other cattle became
accidentally mixed with father's drove. The boss, who was already
partially drunk, had ridden on to a ranch to get more whisky. Father
called on his own boys, and the boys of the other train--on the plains
the drivers were often called boys, even though they were middle aged
men--to help separate them. But those of the other train refused to
help. They tried in vain to separate them, until they were tired out.
As they neared the ranch father walked up to the well to get a drink,
and there sat the drunken boss on his horse. When he saw father, he
exclaimed, with a great oath, "---- ---- ----, what you driving my
cattle off for?"
"I asked your boys to help separate them," replied father, "but they
refused, and I and my boys have worried ourselves out at it. If you
will order your boys to help we will try again."
"---- ---- you, go back and get them cattle out, or I'll send you
to ---- !"
Father looked him steadily in the face, and said quietly, "I would
like to see the irons you would do it with."
"---- ---- go back and get them cattle out, or I'll shoot you as
sure as ---- !" shouted the fellow, jerking out a revolver with
a great flourish.
The frightened boys stood back, expecting to see him shoot, but
father, without moving, coolly replied, "If you want your cattle out,
you will get them out yourself; I will do nothing more about it."
The fellow, cowed by father's cool, determined gaze, put his revolver
back in his belt, rode off, called his men, and they drove the cattle
out themselves.
In October, 1862, father decided to make a winter trip, because he
could earn more money than in the summer. The owners of the train
intended wintering their cattle on the buffalo grass in the Colorado
valleys, which they found cheaper than wintering them on corn in
Kansas. The drivers were mostly Ohio boys, who drove teams because
they wanted to reach the Pike's Peak gold mines. The oxen were a lot
of wild Texas steers, and it took about half a day to get them yoked
up the first time, so that they only traveled about eight miles out
from Atchison the first day. George did not go that trip, but father
took him to town to help them start--because he said that if George
was only ten, he knew more about handling wild oxen than all those
green Ohio boys--and sent him home the second day out. It had been a
very pleasant fall; but I never saw it turn cold so suddenly as it did
that day. I remember that I spent several hours gathering in squashes
and covering up potatoes; and when I returned to the house at 3 p. M.
every leaf on the trees and every flower in the garden was frozen
stiff, pointing straight out to the southeast. It was the only time I
ever saw a frozen flower garden in full bloom. It sleeted nearly all
night, and the Texas cattle, frightened and chilled by wind and sleet,
were so wild that father and all the boys had to herd them all night
to keep them from stampeding. Their clothes were wet and frozen, for
they were not very warmly dressed, and George said he never suffered
so much with the cold in his life as he did that night.
It was a hard and stormy winter, and the Ohio boys, unused to such a
life, suffered badly, many of them freezing their hands and feet. When
they reached Denver the cattle were taken to the valleys, and father
traded his own cattle for mules. Loading his two wagons with hides, so
as to make money both ways, he and the two boys who had driven his
teams started for home. I have heard him say that he never saw weather
so cold, but that he could keep from freezing by walking. So by dint
of much walking he succeeded in reaching home without being frozen.
Their wagons were so full of hides that they had to sleep on the
ground, and he said that on waking in the morning he often found
himself buried in snow. Wood was scarce, and they sometimes had to
haul it quite a distance to build their camp fires at night, and it
was sometimes so stormy that they could scarcely cook.
During the journey one wagon-load after another of returning Pike's
Peak adventurers had fallen in with them, and kept together for the
sake of company and protection against the Indians, until they made
quite a train. By common consent--accordin' to the human nature of the
thing, as they say on the plains--father came to be considered the
boss of the train. There was a ranch near the road, kept by a
Frenchman, who had an Indian wife. He had grown rich selling whisky
and provisions, and wood and hay. When the half-frozen men, with their
hungry teams, came by, he charged them extravagant prices; if they
objected he blustered and threatened until he usually scared them into
paying what he asked. Father and his train camped there one cold
night, and some of the men went up to buy wood and hay; but he asked
such high prices for them that they went back and asked father to go
up. He was busy, and knowing the Frenchman's reputation, told them to
go back and tell him that the boss said he could not pay such
exorbitant prices, but to let them have the wood and hay, and he would
come after awhile and pay a good round price for them. The men
returned, and told what he said, but the Frenchman ordered them to
clear out, and threatened to shoot them if they came back again
without the money he demanded. He would not even allow them to draw
water from the well. Again they begged father to go up, but he said he
was too busy, and told them to go right back and take the wood, hay
and water, and if the Frenchman said anything, to tell him that Pardee
Butler told them to do it, and he would settle the bill. They went
back, the one drawing water, the others getting wood and hay. Out ran
the Frenchman, very wrathy, leveling his gun at them. "The boss told
us to take them, and he'd settle," they said.
"Who's your boss?" he asked in surprise.
"Pardee Butler."
"Pardee Butler! Oh! Oh! Pardee Butler? Take 'em! Take 'em!" he
exclaimed, dropping his gun and throwing up his hands. "Oh! Pardee
Butler! Take 'em! Take 'em!" he continued, fairly dancing around,
white with fright, and gesticulating as only a Frenchman can.
"Why, what's the matter? He wont hurt you," said one of the boys.
"Oh! Pardee Butler! He bad man. Oh! Oh!" he answered, still dancing
and gesticulating.
"Oh, no; he is not a bad man; he never hurt anybody in his life."
"Oh, yees, Pardee Butler one veree bad man! He must be one bad man,
'cause they put heem down the river on one raft, down in Kansas.
Pardee Butler must be one veree bad man!"
Father made no more winter trips, but spent his winters at lumbering.
When he first came to Kansas he had bought eighty acres of timber land
in the river bottoms, in Missouri, two miles below Atchison. Mills had
been erected along the river, and lumber was at last in good demand.
So he found profitable use for his teams, and large freighting wagons,
in working that timber into lumber.
He crossed the plains twice more in the springs of 1863 and 1864.
The Indians often visited their camps, begging for bread, or for sugar
or tobacco. Father said that on his winter trip it made his heart ache
to see the pitiable condition of the women and children, chilling
around in the loose wigwams during the winter storms. He often saw the
women out in the snow gathering up and carrying great loads of wood on
their shoulders. But he said the most pitiable sight he ever saw was
little half-starved, half-naked children, too small to walk, creeping
around under his mule's heels, eagerly eating the grains of corn that
they had dropped.
But the Indians were every year growing more restless, and often
attacked the trains, to obtain provisions, and cattle and mules.
Father often saw them peering around the bluffs, or along the river
banks, watching his movements. But he was very careful, never allowing
the boys or stock to wander off alone, and keeping guards out at
night. Knowing that the Indians were growing dangerous, Bro. Butcher
had insisted on lending him a rifle for his later trips. One day they
were traveling along the Platte River bottoms, the river half a mile
to one side, the bluffs a mile or two back on the other. It seemed
impossible for anything to hide in the low grass around them; but
father knew that here and there in the grass were wet-weather gullies,
deep enough for an Indian to lie in; and his watchful eye detected the
grass moving occasionally, here and there. He halted, telling the men
there were Indians in the grass. At first they made light of it,
saying they knew no Indian could hide in that low grass. But he told
them that he had been watching for some time, and thought the Indians
were creeping up on them from the river. He took Bro. Butcher's rifle
out of the wagon, saying, "I am going down there to see; who will go
with me?" But none of them offered to go, except a boy of sixteen,
who, seeing the rest would not go, shouldered another gun, saying,
"For shame! I wont see the old man go alone!" The two went down
through the grass, and when they reached the river, they saw a number
of Indians running away under shelter of the bank. The Indians seldom
attack determined men, who are on their guard--unless they are on the
war-path with a large force--and they saw that father was such a man,
and gave him no more trouble. It was on his last trip, in 1864, that
the Indian raid occurred, which he mentioned in Chapter XXXI. On their
return they found that armed bands of Indians were still riding about
the country. One afternoon, when they were within a little over a
day's drive of Fort Kearney, they saw a band of Indians prowling
about, first in one direction, then in another. The boys were badly
frightened, and wanted to run their teams all night, in order to reach
the fort. The weather was hot, and the oxen already tired, and father
feared that such a forced drive would kill them. So he ordered the
boys to camp for the night. They kept out a strong guard, and were not
attacked; but reached the fort in safety the next day.
The District Missionary Society of Northeastern Kansas had held two
yearly meetings in the tent at Pardee, in August, 1862, and August,
1863, just after father's return each year from his summer trips across
the plains. In August, 1864, soon after his return from his last trip,
another district meeting was held at Wolf Creek, Doniphan county, which
was the home of Bro. Beeler, and of Brethren Jonathan and Nathan
Springer. Father had held a number of good meetings there, and built up
quite a church. But when the railroads went through there the town of
Severance was built up on one side; and Highland, seven or eight miles
on the other side, which was already a Presbyterian stronghold, received
a new impetus. So the church at Wolf Creek was broken up, and one was
organized at Severance, and one has since been built up at Highland, of
which Bro. Beeler is the leading member.
Bro. Jonathan Springer--who has moved to Goffs, where he still
maintains his old-time zeal--relates an incident which occurred a year
or two before that district meeting. Father was holding a protracted
meeting, when there came into the neighborhood a young preaching
brother from one of the Southern States, running away from the Union
soldiers. Upon learning who he was, father invited him to preach, and
they continued preaching together for a week, holding an excellent
meeting, and father said not a word to him about the questions
dividing North and South. Bro. Springer said, "I always thought that
Bro. Butler was a peculiar, a wonderful, and a powerful preacher."
Speaking of his ability to attract and hold the attention of an
audience, Bro. Springer said, "I once heard him begin a sermon with
the question, 'Are we dogs, or are we men?'" At the district meeting
his sermon was on his favorite theme, "Christian Union;" and it was
two hours in length, yet he held the close attention of the audience
to the end. Although he often preached on that subject, he always had
something fresh to say. He could not crowd all that he had to say
about it into one sermon. He was constantly reading of the change of
sentiment on Christian union among other denominations, and referring
to it in his sermons.
A few years ago he preached a series of discourses on that subject at
Pardee, closing as follows: "The Protestant denominations will all
become one yet, not by other churches coming to any one church, but
their differences will almost imperceptibly disappear, and they will
all melt into one, and no one will be able to tell how it was done."
In the spring of 1865 he moved back to the farm, and spent much of the
summer in preaching. For the next four years his winters were spent in
lumbering, and his summers in preaching, and improving his farm. Even
while lumbering he preached somewhere nearly every Sunday; sometimes
at home, sometimes in the schoolhouse near his timber, and sometimes
he landed a raft at Port William on Saturday, and went across and
preached for the church at Pleasant Ridge, Leavenworth county. And
other Sundays he preached at various points easy to reach on Saturday
evening, and return to his work on Monday morning.
He rafted many of his logs to Port William or Leavenworth, and usually
helped to take them down; and there was much joking about where he
learned the rafting business. It was dangerous, however, for rafts
sometimes struck snags, or became unmanageable in the swift current,
and went to pieces.
When the Central Branch Railroad was built, the company took corn of
settlers in payment for lands, cribbing it by the road. Instead of
shipping off the corn, they shipped Texas cattle to the cribs, to eat
it up. They soon came to father in great perplexity. Their cattle
broke every fence they could build, and they did not know what to do
with them. So he told them how to build a fence the cattle could not
break, and he had a quantity of extra strong lumber sawed for that
purpose. When he called at the railroad office to receive pay for his
lumber, the clerk paid him in rolls of bills sealed up in paper, with
the value marked on the outside. After leaving the office he counted
his money, and found that one of the rolls that was marked $100,
really contained $1,000. Returning, he told the clerk he had made a
mistake. "We correct no mistakes," was the gruff reply. "Young man,
you are not doing business for yourself, but for the railroad company;
come here and help me count the money." The label had been misplaced.
The greater part of father's lumber was sawed at Winthrop, now called
East Atchison, and he did much hauling across the river on the ice.
His teams were usually the first to cross when the river froze up, and
the last to quit crossing in the spring; but as he was a good judge of
the condition of the ice, he never lost a team. I have heard my
brother George say that four or five times, when father or himself
had, by careful driving, crossed in safety with large double teams and
heavy loads, others, trying to cross behind them with light wagons,
had broken through, and either lost their teams or been saved with
difficulty. One spring the ice was thawing rapidly, and had become
quite rotten; but father wanted to take one more heavy load across,
and he drove it himself. It was drawn by several yoke of oxen, and
their weight sunk the ice so that the water spouted through the
air-holes and frightened them. He knew that the beaten track,
where the teams had trodden the ice solid, and the accumulated mud had
shaded it, had not thawed as fast as the surrounding ice, and that to
allow his wagon to swerve a foot, one way or the other, was to risk
breaking in. He ran along by the lead yoke, watching them so closely
that he did not notice where he was walking, and several times he
stepped off, knee-deep in little air-holes; but he took his load
safely over. As he went up the bank some half-drunken Germans in a
sleigh dashed down on the ice and broke through, but were so near the
shore that they easily got out. But one of father's wagons ever broke
through, and it was driven by a careless hired man. Father was ahead
with another team. He called back to the man to unhitch quickly and
hitch on to the end of the tongue, for fear the team would break
through, too, and running back, he put lumber under the wheels, and
they pulled the wagon out.
Father gave away a great deal of wood over there. In those days coal
was scarce and high, and, consequently, wood was high also. Many
families were so glad to receive the wood as a gift, that they were
willing to haul it twelve or fourteen miles. And, winter after winter,
he also kept two or three poor families supplied with wood from his
timber at home, allowing them to come and help themselves.
Father and mother were always very generous, giving freely of money,
wood, fruits, vegetables, milk, or whatever they had to spare, to
those more needy than themselves. I can not remember of ever seeing
them charge any one for a night's lodging, or turn any one away.
When father had anything to sell, he often refused to accept its
market value, because he thought it was not really worth the price. A
friend once noticed him selling seed potatoes much below the market
price, and told him that his generous habit of selling to his
neighbors so cheaply would keep him poor. He replied that the market
price was extortionate, and that his conscience would not allow him to
accept it.
In his later years he gave freely to help build various churches; and
to State and General Missionary Societies, and to the many calls for
money.
He could never stand by and order men around, but always took hold and
did the hardest of the work himself; and the excessively heavy work of
logging injured his health. He had several severe spells of nervous
rheumatism, and from that time his right arm was troubled with the
trembling palsy, which grew worse until his death. He had not been
able to write with a pen for several years, and his "Recollections"
were all written by holding a pencil in his right hand, and steadying
that with the left hand.
Once, while he was lumbering, mother remonstrated with him for wearing
himself out so fast. He replied that he saw so much needing to be
done, and done at once, he felt compelled to push his work off his
hands as fast as possible. If it shortened his life, he said it made
no difference to him, provided he could accomplish more than in a long
life of easy work. I heard him say once that we ought to make our
life-work of so much importance, that neither cold, nor storm, nor any
other hindrance should be allowed to interfere with the performance of
duty. And I seldom knew him to stop for bad weather of any kind.
In December, 1865, I had concluded to go to school a term at
Manhattan, and asked father to take me there, for it was a hundred
miles, and there was not a railroad in the State. He sent an
appointment to hold a meeting there at that time. The morning that we
were to start the thermometer was eighteen degrees below zero, and the
wind blowing keenly from the northwest. But if we postponed our
journey he would miss an appointment, and so we started. There was no
snow, the roads were rough, and we had to travel in a lumber wagon,
and were three days on the way. I was well wrapped in blankets, and
did not suffer severely, but father, on account of driving, could not
wrap up so much, and had to walk nearly half of the time to keep from
freezing. His nose and cheeks were slightly frozen the second day, for
it did not begin to moderate until the third day.
He held a good meeting of eight or ten days. There were about a dozen
baptisms, the ice being cut in the river for that purpose.