HON. WILLIAM BUTLER, one of Page County's foremost and truly representative leaders, is introduced to the reader in this connection.
In sketching the career of a useful and eventful life one finds no easy task. Unlike the man who has slipped noiselessly through life's warfare and distinguished alone in some one particular role, is the individual whose influence has touched every branch of trade that comes in the march of a third of a century, and of whom too much can not be said. Every man makes a record, and all should (and generally do) have credit for their full measure of superiority, influence and usefulness. If it is not recorded in print, the traits of character men admire because of their nobleness and actual worth to the world, are never lost, but are seen springing up in other lives and deeds.
All men have influence and in the degree that they are strong-minded, to such a degree are they felt and duly appreciated by their fellowman. The lives of men become meritorious and recognized as great (in their sphere) by what they have accomplished and not by any fanciful theory they may have entertained and fostered, as the idol of their heart. Many a well-schooled philosopher was captivated by the wonderful workings of what we call electricity, but none went down in history as great, until Franklin, Morse, and our more modern Edison, left theory and brought to the world practical results which today are seen and read by all men. Suffice to say that men attain to true greatness in that they do something for the benefit of themselves and also for the masses with whom they mingle; their works stand as everlasting monuments, in the shadow of which mere marble shafts dwindle into utter insignificance.
No man is better, and also more favorably known by his works, of both a private and public nature, in all Southwestern Iowa, than Hon. William Butler. Especially may Page County point with pride to him of whom this notice is written, and within the space allotted for reviewing the career of so eventful a life, the writer becomes baffled in selecting the most prominent features of his subject history, each seeming to have special bearing upon his well-rounded lifework. However, the reader may be better enabled to fathom the cause for the maturing of so successful a man, by first acquainting himself with his ancestry, birthplace and earlier years. Mr. Butler was born in Wayne County, Indiana, September 13, 1827. He is the third son and sixth child of a family of eight children. His parents were Samuel and Mary (Davenport) Butler. The father was a native of Georgia, born in 1793, and came with his father's family to Wayne County, Indiana, in 1806, when he was thirteen years of age. The grandfather's name was Beal Butler, who married Mary Stubbs, who was the first white woman to make a home on the west side of the Whitewater River, in Wayne County, Indiana. The Butler family, of English origin, have oscillated between the pulpit and the forum, both in England and America. Now pleading in one, then thundering from the other, but in each becoming potent factors for public good.
Our subject's father, Samuel Butler, was reared on a frontier farm in the wilds of Wayne County, Indiana, and when grown to manhood was united in marriage to Miss Mary, daughter of Jesse and Rebecca (Hoover) Davenport, whose family connections were of Quaker extraction. Her father was a native of North Carolina. The mother of our subject was born in Wayne County and died when William was but four years old, just when a boy needs the tender watch-care of a kind, loving mother.
In the spring of 1843, his father removed to Whitley County, Indiana, then the home of the numerous Indian tribes, and all one vast wilderness. Here he again became a pioneer and began the no easy task of developing a farm, which, in that State, and at that day, signified great hardship and much work. Perhaps no part of the Union was settled under greater difficulties than the " Hoosier " State. Amid the frontier scenes, surrounded with naught but the wilds of an undeveloped country, were the first and perhaps most valuable lessons of Mr. Butler's life, taught by the great teacher, experience. With him, as with so many men who have made life a success, it would seem that the labor performed and hardships endured in a new country, all tended to make strong his character.
Indeed but few men of note have been reared from infancy, midst the surroundings of cultivation and luxury. It requires the tempest to strengthen even the hardy oak.
When Mr. Butler was sixteen years of age he set forth in life's race to achieve something for himself. He possessed no means, save the strong body and active mind bestowed upon him by his parentage. He went to Wayne County and followed teaming for three years. The first winter, however, he was engaged as weighmaster in a packing house. After the third year he, in company with his brother, rented a farm which they cultivated for two years. He was married, February 2,1851, to Miss Margaret McCowen, a native of Pennsylvania, the daughter of William McCowen. Soon after his marriage Mr. Butler removed to Whitley County, Indiana, where he rented land and farmed until the winter of 1855, when, by horseteam, he moved to Henry County, Iowa. He stood on the bank of the Mississippi River and looked upon the first locomotive that crossed the river, over into Iowa, at Burlington, now so famous as a railway center. He occupied a rented farm, near New London, Iowa, for one year, and April, 1856, removed to Page County, with which he has since been closely identified and instrumental in making it, in many respects, one of Iowa's banner counties. He at once saw value in the virgin soil, of what was then a new county and pre-empted the northeast quarter of section 30, in what is now known as Harlem Township. He improved this tract of land and remained there until the spring of 1865, when he extended his landed estate by the purchase of 305 acres on which now stands the State Hospital for the Insane. From the autumn of 1861 until after the Rebellion he was more or less engaged in buying and selling livestock. In 1871 he became an extensive dealer in grain, and erected the first grain elevator in Clarinda. The firm of which he was a member was Butler Brothers, which partnership existed from 1876 to 1882. During the years 1879-'80 they shipped 1,700 carloads of stock. Our subject was a member of a syndicate which handled over two million bushels of grain. Like nearly all of our successful business men, who have secured large fortunes, Mr. Butler has ventured much and finally made for himself and family a handsome competency; and to his credit be it said he uses it with a liberal hand, the means he has secured by honest toil and business sagacity for the comfort of his family, and has never yet been the man to refuse to contribute lavishly to every praiseworthy object, whether public or private in its demand. In this he has became a true benefactor to Clarinda and Page County in general.
Mr. Butler is an honored member of the various divisions of the Masonic fraternity, and is now up to the thirty-second degree of that order, having been a member of the blue lodge for many years, and one of the charter members of both chapter and commandery. He also belongs to the Knights of Pythias and Odd Fellow fraternities.
While the years have, one by one, been slipping by, and silvery streaks been making their appearance in his once dark locks, his property hae been steadily increasing. Yet it should not be understood that this man of business, during all those years ignored politics and the general public good in the " Kingdom of Page;" for even the early records of the county, as well as every politcal campaign document, have unmistakable evidence as to his activity in this direction. He is of that practical temperament which prefers to " wear out rather than rust out," as was said of statesman Zach Chandler in Congress.
In his political belief he is thoroughly Republican, aggressive and ever to be counted on as reliable and a stanch supporter of our National and State constitutions. He has the goodwill of all parties, by reason of his honorable fairminded course in the rightful vindication of what to him seems the proper course. Again, by reference to the many public measures he has espoused, as champion and leader, it will be found that in each case (proven by final outcome) he has worked for the good of his county and State.
Being vigorous and progressive, at times he has seemed to be too far in advance, but finally, the same men who thought thus have admitted to him that they themselves should have been standing on the same plane he stood upon at the time.
In the Fremont campaign of 1856, he wrote ballots half the day, and, by good work in the afternoon of the election, assisted in coming within three votes of carrying his county Republican.
Practically speaking, Mr. Butler's political and public career dates from January 7,1861, at which time the first board of county supervisors assembled, the old county judge system being abandoned art that time, and one supervisor elected from each civil township. Mr. Butler was the first representative from Harlin township.
In 1862-'63-'64,we find him still an honored member of the board, which had many responsibilities during the period of the civil war.
In 1869, we find him again a member of the board from Nodaway Township, and using every effort to obtain a railway.
In 1869 he was elected the Representative of his district in the Iowa Legislature, that being for the XIIIth General Assembly.
The next campaign he was re-elected as member of the House to the XIVth General Assembly and was made chairman of the appropriation committee, and was one of the prime movers in starting the present State house at Des Moines, second only to one, in point of grandeur, of all in the United States. When the question arose whether wine and beer should be classed among intoxicants, he voted "yes," and had more members voted likewise much of the long train of legislative litigation which came about through the passage of the prohibitory amendment, might have been averted.
When the "prohibition amendment" vote was taken in the Legislature he was one of the fifty-two members who voted for the law. The greatest good to the greatest number, has ever been his theory. During the special session of the Legislature, in 1873, when the " Code of 1873 " was enacted, Mr. Butler did noble service. Many laws had become dead letters and were at that time revised and amended for the better. At that session he served as chairman of the committee on police regulations, and many important laws were submitted to him. Through correct voting on various sections by Mr. Butler and his colleagues, who possessed cool, level-headed deliberation, the code of today is looked upon by the courts as among the best of the nation.
In the autumn of 1883 Mr. Butler was again elected to the House of the XXth General Assembly, and re-elected to the XXIst General Assembly in 1885. It was during 1884 that he achieved for himself and Page County his greatest victory, but only after a long, hotly contested, and also very spirited struggle, which arose over the location and erection of Iowa's third Hospital for the Insane.
In this legislative fight all the powers of his manhood had to be brought into action; legal understanding, parliamentary rules, political " wire-pulling," yet the maintenance of strict integrity, all must needs be employed; and when the testing time came, he was found complete master of the situation. These words are no idle fancy-threads with which to weave a mantle of flattery around him of whom this sketch is written, but they are matters of public record, the same being heralded by the city and local press throughout the State, many of which the writer has in his possession.
That to the Hon. William Butler belongs the honor (for such it is) of securing the location of this great State institution at Clarinda, none have questioned. It may be called his crowning triumph in the role of a legislator, giving him such a marked individuality as no other act could possibly have done; for it should be remembered that Atlantic, Creston, Red Oak and many other cities in this portion of Iowa, all had experienced and able men representing their interests in the same matter. As the home glee club sang it at the reception given him over that event:
" Butler thought it, fought it, won it; When twice 'twas lost he won; He has been a faithful servant, Let us say," Well done."
Upon receipt of the news of the final outcome of the contest the following telegram was forwarded to Mr. Butler at Des Moines: "Hon. William Butler: Five hundred assembled citizens, hoarse from enthusiastic cheering, send you congratulations."
The public reception given himself and family upon his return home, was one of the most spirited and brilliant receptions tendered to a representative. While Mr. Butler was leader and champion in all this affair of securing the hospital, it is here due Senator T. E. Clark and ex-Senator Lewellen, to state that they supported his every effort and should receive much credit.
During the month of February, 1885, Mr. Butler was awarded the contract of building the magnificent "Temple of Justice," the present courthouse. His bid was $71,000, the lowest of all the many bids presented. He gave it special and personal attention from the foundation stone to the very dome, and all citizens agree, regardless of opinions advanced at the time, that no more honest work was ever superintended in Page County. It stands a solid monument to the work he so faithfully performed: no money withheld, but all expended as per terms of his contract, thus giving the taxpayer full value received.
No man has accomplished more for the county in the way of securing railway lines than Mr. Butler, as well as assisting in enacting State laws for the management of the same on behalf of the people. What Allison and Kirkwood have been to Iowa, Hon. William Butler has been to the people living in the southwestern portion of this great commonwealth. We now come to his more personal and domestic relations, wherein man's true virtues are best tested. He who forgets not wife and child, but fondly cherishes both, even as he does his own life, though pressed on every hand with the busy cares of an eventful life, is truly a good man.
As previously stated, Mr. Butler married Miss Margaret McCowen, in 1851; this was a happy union, only broken by the beloved wife's death, July 8, 1871. He was again united in marriage, March 3, 1873, to Miss Eleanor D. McCartey, a native of Ohio. Mrs. Butler was born in Geauga County, Ohio, July 6,1828. She is the daughter of Russell G. McCartey, who was a native of Colchester, Connecticut, born August 12, 1792. During his youth his parents removed to Martinsburg, Jefferson County, New York, where he was reared to farm life, receiving a good school education, which enabled him to teach when grown to manhood. His parents both died in one week, when he was nineteen years of age. He then came West and located in Geauga County, Ohio, where he formed a partnership with G. H. Kent, in the manufacture of pearl-ash, and in connection with which he followed agricultural pursuits. He was married, March 23, 1820, to Miss Delia Kent, who was born April 30, 1795, at Suffield, Connecticut. She was the daughter of G. H. Kent, above mentioned, who was born August 9, 1765, at Suffield, Connecticut. His wife, grandmother of Mrs. Butler, was Deborah Huntington, also a native of Connecticut, born November 21,1762. She was of English extraction. Mrs. Butler's grandparents were the second family to settle in Geauga County, Ohio. They entered a large tract of land owned by the Government, and figured among the leading families of that county. Her grandfather took an active part in all the political issues of the day and was rewarded by seeing his oldest son elected to a seat in the Legislature. Mrs. Butler was the third in a family of six children: Henry, Deborah, Eleanor, Salmon, Minerva and Edson.
Mrs. Butler (Eleanor) is the only surviving child. She was educated at that most excellent institution, Oberlin College, as were the remainder of the family. She taught in the public schools of Cleveland one year, when she resigned on account of her father's failing health. She and her sister, Minerva, accompanied him on an extended visit to his old home in the East, visiting in Canada and New York. The father died July 5, of that year, 1857, and her sister Minerva, March 17, the following year. Her mother died June 8, 1880, at the home of Mrs. Butler, at Clarinda, Iowa. Her remains were taken to Ohio for burial, where she rests by the side of her beloved companion and five children.
Mr. and Mrs. Butler are the parents of one child, a bright, intelligent daughter, Nellie McCartey Butler, born August 26, 1875, at Denver, Colorado. The Butler family are respected and admired by an unusually large circle of friends, which is the result of numerous causes. In the first instance, Mr. Butler is numbered among Page County's pioneer band, and has taken active part in all the giant enterprises which have furthered the development of a section of Iowa in which it is an honor for any person to reside. By his untiring efforts in the Legislature for four sessions, he has assisted in building up the public schools and at the same time voted the saloon down. In all his undertakings, improving his frontier farm, transacting a large amount of business in grain, stock and real estate; as member of the county board, member of the State Legislature, with all the complicated features of such a place of trust and responsibility, it is not to be wondered at that he is widely known; also, that after having accomplished so much of public good that he should have such a legion of friends.
Again, it should be remembered that it is not alone to him that this meed [sic] of praise is due, but his companion has exerted an influence upou her husband that only comes as a heaven born blessing, vouchsafed in the attributes of a loving and devoted wife. Possessing, as Mrs. Butler does, so many priceless yet rare accomplishments, she calls forth the admiration of the best type of society wherever she goes. She is at once intelligent, womanly and modest in all her ways. While Mr. Butler ranks as leader among men, his estimable lady is none the less a leader among her sex. In closing this sketch it may be added that Mr. Butler and family have thus far in life made a record well worthy to be patterned after by the rising generation, who may from their lives better know what plain, working, thinking men and women may achieve for themselves.
