Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler

man. He had leased a saw-mill, and was running it, and I had bou

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 statesm

empted 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, t

ry 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 und

t 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, publish

flections. 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

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lenge 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

t 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 infamou

our slave population, appointed a committee to wait on Mr. Butler and request his signature to the resolutions passed at the late pro

wo logs firmly lashed together, that his baggage and a loaf of bread be given him, and having attached a flag to his

ur citizens, who, seeing him pass several rock-heaps in quit

purpose of interfering with our time-honored institutions, and the same p

it vehemently inveighed against the ruffianism with which free State men had been treated. Of course there was sympathy in th

Military Tract," via the Illinois River. The reader will believe that my reflections were full o