The following tributes of friendship were published in the Atchison Champion, after father’s death: 

TWO KANSAS PIONEERS.

BY JOHN A. MARTIN, EX-GOVERNOR OF KANSAS.

Rev. Pardee Butler, who died at his old home, near Farmington, on Saturday last, was, for a full generation past, one of the most prominent figures in Kansas history.  He was a minister of the Christian Church, and located in this county early in 1855.  He came to Kansas to fight slavery.  He was a sincere man.  He was a brave man.  He had in him the stuff of which martyrs are made.  He deliberately chose, on coming to the young Territory, the county in which the advocates of slavery seemed to be strongest and most violent.  He made no secret of his opinions on the question of slavery, nor of his purpose to oppose the attempt to make Kansas, a slave State.  He was not a fighting man, in the worldly sense of that word; but in its broader and higher significance, he was an aggressive, fearless, tireless fighter.  He would not kill, but he did not hesitate to brave death.  He would not shoot, but he did not quail or cower before guns, for knives, or ropes.

The Champion publishes, this morning, some extracts from its own columns, when it was a newspaper with another name and other principles, narrating some of the incidents of his early life in Kansas.  They are historic.  During a marvelous era they stirred the heart and aroused the conscience of the Nation.  This humble preacher, coming to the Territory for a cause, and bravely enduring the pangs of martyrdom for his opinions, became, at once, the representative of millions of men.  The story of his wrongs was told in every newspaper of the land, and was discussed around the firesides of a million homes.  The brutal pro-slavery mob of Atchison saw in him only an impudent and absurd opponent of an institution that controlled courts, legislatures and congress; the awakening Nation saw that he stood for Free Speech, for Liberty, for Law, and for Humanity; and the indignities heaped upon him touched and stirred the heart of the North in its profoundest depths.

Pardee Butler, facing the drunken, ignorant, howling, brutal pro-slavery mobs of Atchison, must have been, to them, a unique figure.  They could not understand him.  The writer has heard men who were present, but not participants, when the mob had him in charge, say that the mingled hatred and respect with which the ruffians regarded him, was singularly manifest.  He bore himself with quiet dignity and composure.  He did not attempt to resist, nor, on the other hand, did he manifest the slightest evidence of fear.  To their loud and violent threatenings, he made answer with quiet, manly dignity.  It would have gratified the ruffians beyond measure if they could have induced him to recant, or to make some pledge that would compromise his frankly expressed opinions—­some promise of silence concerning or acquiescence in, or non-interference