HON.
WILLIAM NICHOLAS BUTLER. One of those who both as public official and
prominent citizen have been important factors in the moulding of Cairo's
municipal history, Hon. William Nicholas Butler is presiding judge of the
First Judicial Circuit of Illinois, with which section he has been
identified since childhood, and his participation in the public affairs of
this portion of Illinois and of Alexander county, his home, has been varied
and important. He was born at Berlin, Green Lake county, Wisconsin, August
16, 1856, in which state his father had spent considerable time in the
Government Indian service, and upon the conclusion of which he took his
family to Columbia county, Pennsylvania, in 1859. His father was Comfort
Edgar Butler, whose native place was Ithaca, New York, being born there
October 23, 1824, the family having been founded at that locality by Daniel
Bayard Butler, the father of Comfort E., and the community of Stratford,
Connecticut, furnished this bit of human migration. In this part of the
Nutmeg state the first Butler settled as an English immigrant in 1839.
Daniel Bayard Butler married Elsie Edgar, who was born in Orange county,
New York, a daughter of the Rev. Edgar, and she died at Canton,
Pennsylvania, in 1880, the mother of Comfort Edgar and Helen. The latter
married William H. Nichols and now resides with her daughter, Mrs. George E.
Man, whose husband has been in the United States consular service in
European cities for many years. Daniel Bayard Butler passed his life as a
journalist and was in the newspaper business at Geneseo and Rochester, New
York, and was associated as a publisher with old Dr. John Harper, the father
of Harper Brothers, the famed New York publishers. Early in the 'forties he
started for the Pacific coast by the way of the Isthmus of Panama, and while
crossing the isthmus dropped out of sight completely, and is believed to
have perished there.
Comfort Edgar Butler grew up under a pure and
intellectual influence, among associates whose homes abounded in culture and
where the Puritan air still echoed the music of Colonial days, and his
education came rather from contact with the public effort and from
absorption from his fellows than from doing a course in an institution of
learning. Clerical work seemed to be his forte, and his life was devoted to
it wherever he was permanently located. He exercised his suffrage first as a
Whig, then as a Republican, but took no part as a partisan politician. He
was a man of extreme modesty, held aloof from any appearance of forwardness,
and while he was reared under strict church discipline, he took no part in
church work himself. Upon the issues of the Civil war he lost little time in
offering himself as a volunteer soldier. He enlisted in Columbia county,
Pennsylvania, first in Company I, Thirty-first Infantry, and subsequently in
Company A, Seventy-fourth Infantry, in the Army of the Potomac. He was
acting quartermaster and later chief clerk at headquarters of the Department
of Virginia, and passed through the service without untoward incident, being
discharged in September, 1865, after a faithful service. He then joined his
family at Canandaigua, New York, and was a clerical man until he .went South
on an experiment in 1869. He was induced to believe that the state of Texas
offered the chief elements desired by the home-seeker, but after spending a
few months at Columbus, that state, became convinced of its unadaptability
to the Northern ex-soldier at that time.
Returning North with his
family the same year, Mr. Butler settled at Anna, Illinois, and followed his
favorite vocation there until his death, June 25, 1888. He married Miss
Celesta A. Carter, a daughter of Cyrus Carter, who was sixth in descent from
Rev. Thomas Carter, the pioneer minister of Woburn, Massachusetts, and a
graduate of the theological department of Oxford University, England. Cyrus
Carter was born at Rutland, Vermont, and was a son of David Carter, whose
forefathers were active participants in the Colonial wars and the war for
American independence, and who shed lustre upon their family as civilian
gentlemen as well. Cyrus Carter was born March 6, 1798, was a tanner,
pump-maker and farmer, and at different times lived at Darien and
Canandaigua, New York, at Janesville, Berlin and Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and at
Anna and Cairo, Illinois, and died in the last-named city October 6, 1891.
His wife was Esther Saunders, and their children were: Marietta, who became
the wife of Dr. Waldo Allen and died in Wisconsin; Celesta Ann, born August
19, 1833; Olive Fidelia, who married Owen Townsend, of Fond du Lac,
Wisconsin. Four children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Butler, namely: Cyrus
Waldo, who is unmarried and resides at Seattle, Washington; Judge William
Nicholas; Genevieve, the wife of Charles Lyons, of Silver City, New Mexico;
and Olive Dacy, who is the widow of Edward H. Myers, of Washington, D. C.
After the public schools of Anna, Illinois, William Nicholas Butler
entered the University of Illinois, and graduated therefrom June 7, 1879.
His tuition was largely earned by his own industry as a carpenter, at the
printer's case, clerking in a store and teaching school. He first read law
with Judge Monroe C. Crawford, his first recollections of whom were as a
barefoot boy peeping into the door of the courtroom at Jonesboro, where the
Judge was presiding over the scales of justice, and thirty-four years after
which event the former barefoot boy defeated the dignified and scholarly
Judge for the same position on the Bench. In the autumn of 1881 Judge Butler
entered the Union College of Law at Chicago, where he was a classmate and
seatmate of William Jennings Bryan. In 1882 he entered the senior class of
the Albany (New York) Law School and graduated in 1883, with the degree of
Bachelor of Laws. In August of that year he located in Cairo and took a
Government position in the internal revenue service, under General C. W.
Pavey, collector.
In the fall of 1884 Judge Butler entered politics
actively as a candidate for state's attorney, was nominated by the
Republicans of Alexander county and elected for a term of four years, and
was three times re-elected to the office. From 1895 to 1897 he was
corporation counsel for the city of Cairo. He has served the public schools
here as a member of the board of education six years, being chosen upon the
issue of the building of the high school, and was elected a judge of the
First Circuit to fill a vacancy, December 12, 1903, and after serving almost
six years was chosen his own successor at the November election of 1910, for
a six-year term. His activity as a Republican can be estimated by a
reference to his party service. He was chairman of the Central Committee of
his county six years, was chairman of the Republican committee of the
Supreme Court District and of the Republican judicial committee of the First
Circuit for the year 1889; was an alternate to the Republican National
Convention of 1888 and was seated with the delegates from Illinois and aided
in nominating General Harrison for the presidency. He was captain and
adjutant of the old Ninth Regiment of the Third Brigade, Illinois National
Guard, from its organization. He served for a long period as president of
the Alumni Association of the University of Illinois, and is now a member of
the Ancient Free & Accepted Masons and the Knights of Pythias. His religious
connection is with the Presbyterian church.
Judge Butler was
married, October 28, 1885, at Fairbury, Illinois, to Miss Mary Mattoon,
daughter of Franklin and Caroline A. (Straight) Mattoon. Mrs. Butler's
father died in early life, leaving two children: Mary and Franklin G. The
latter entered the Indian service as a young man, became agent at Fort
Berthold, North Dakota, held the same position at the Crow agency, and was
later appointed head of the consolidated agencies in Idaho, resigning from
the service to engage in banking at Forsyth, Montana. Mrs. Mattoon
subsequently married Samuel Rogers, and is now one of the household of Judge
and Mrs. Butler. The latter's children are: Comfort Straight, who graduated
from, the University of Illinois in 1909, and from the law department of the
George Washington University at Washington, D. C., in 1912, and is now a
practicing attorney in St. Louis, Missouri; William Glenn, a student in the
agricultural department of the University of Illinois; Franklin Mattoon, who
is attending the Cairo High School; Mary, who has completed her course in
the same institution; Helen, who died in 1906 in childhood; and John Bruce,
who is a student in the graded public schools of Cairo.
Extracted 15 Jan 2018 by Norma Hass from 1912 History of Southern Illinois, Volume 2, pages 814-816.
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