Farmington Christian Church
Mission
The Atchison County Historical Society is dedicated to preserving the structure and using it to tell the story of Free-Staters during the territorial days of our state. Perhaps the structure can be used for events, meetings, weddings, family reunions in the future.
History of the Structure and the Church
At
Pardee Butler
Pardee Butler was born March 9, 1816 in Onondaga County, New York and passed away on October 20, 1888 in Farmington, Atchison County, Kansas was a farmer and Restoration Movement preacher who arrived in Kansas in 1855 and was involved there in the run-up to the American Civil War. He is remembered in Kansas history for being set adrift on the Missouri River on a raft by pro-slavery men in Atchison for his abolitionist beliefs.
Butler was among the early organizers of the Republican Party in Kansas.
Pardee Butler's ancestors were from New England. His parents are Phineas Butler and Sarah Pardee. In 1818 the family moved west to Wadsworth, Ohio in the Western Reserve. In 1839 the family moved to the Sandusky Plains in northwestern Ohio where Pardee met his future wife Sibjl [sic] Carleton. They were married August 17, 1843. Pardee farmed for a living and preached for his beliefs. He developed quinsy (an abscess of the tonsils) that caused him to give up preaching and move to Cedar County, Iowa in 1850 to improve his health. Over the next several years he preached in various places in Illinois and Missouri and in early 1855 came to Kansas.
Kansas in the 1850s was a territory with strong sentiment on both sides of the slavery issue. Butler obtained a claim to 160 acres of land, twelve miles from Atchison, on the banks of the Stranger Creek. His great-great-grandson farms the land to this day. In June, Butler preached the first sermon in Kansas by a Christian minister.
By the middle of August Butler had built a cabin and stopped in Atchison on his way back to Illinois to fetch his family. It was there that the rafting episode took place on August 18, 1855. In addition to Butler's first-hand account of the episode in his Recollections, Cutler's History of the State of Kansas discusses the episode in his chapter on the border ruffian warfare.
While in Atchison Butler went to the offices of the Squatter Sovereign to get some extra copies to show his friends in Illinois. Butler was waited on by Robert S. Kelley and took the opportunity to announce his free-state views. Kelley organized a meeting that night and the next day Kelley and his cohorts accosted Butler and demanded he sign a string of resolutions denouncing free State men. He refused. A large crowd gathered. Matters were debated. Eventually a vote was taken upon the mode of punishment which ought to be accorded to him [Butler], and to this day it is probably known but too few persons that a decided verdict of death by hanging was rendered; and furthermore, that Mr. Kelley, the teller, by making false returns to the excited mob, save Mr. Butler's life ... the pro-slavery party decided to send Mr. Butler down the Missouri River on a raft.
The flag remained in the family and was donated by his son Charles Pardee Butler to the Kansas State Historical Society in 1927 and is on display in the Kansas Museum of History. The text "Greeley to the Rescue" is a reference to Horace Greeley, the New York Tribune anti-slavery editor.
A raft was constructed of two logs, a flag placed on the end of the raft, Butler ordered to take his place on the raft, and the whole was towed by a skiff to the middle of the Missouri river and set adrift. As the raft departed the bank Butler declaimed:
Gentlemen, if I am drowned [he could not swim] I forgive you; but I have this to say to you: If you are not ashamed of your part in this transaction, I am not ashamed of mine. Good-by.
Butler cut off the flag and using the flag staff as a paddle made his way to the Kansas shore. The rafting episode was widely publicized and made clear that "... the country was full of men that were ready to fight."
The following spring on April 30, 1856 Butler passed through Atchison on his way back to his homestead from more preaching in Illinois. He was spotted by Kelley and was again soon the target of an angry mob who wanted to shoot or hang him. After much discussion a punishment of tarring and feathering substituted. Butler's account of this episode appeared in several papers of the times.
The passions of which Butler was a victim continued to ferment in Kansas and the rest of the country and soon led to the Civil War.
Interior of the farmington christian church
Stained Glass
Stained Glass
Stained Glass
East end of the sanctuary is the location of the one piece of stained glass.
Sanctuary
Stained Glass
Stained Glass
The pulpit is in the Northern part of the sanctuary
Sanctuary
Stained Glass
Sanctuary
The entrance to the sanctuary is at the southeast corner of the church.