Pardee Butler

Born in New York in 1816, he grew up in Ohio, became a minister in the Disciples of Christ, and later served churches in Ohio and Iowa before heading to Kansas Territory in 1855. He settled near Farmington in Atchison County, where he farmed and preached while the territory was being torn apart by the slavery question.

He is best remembered for his outspoken Free-State and antislavery activism during the Bleeding Kansas years. In Atchison, his refusal to support slavery made him a target of pro-slavery mobs, and the dramatic incidents surrounding him helped make him a well-known Kansas reformer.

Beyond that conflict, he spent years as a minister, community leader, and advocate for reform. Historical accounts also remember him as an Atchison County pioneer and note that the town of Pardee, Kansas, was named in his honor. He died in Kansas in 1888.