Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1915
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 622
LORENZO D. BUTLER

This conspicuous figure in the pioneer settlement of Harrison county deserves a place in the pages of this history. In many things Mr. BUTLER was foremost. He was a native of Kentucky. In his early manhood he was a member of the Mormon church, but left that organization in 1851. He came to Twelve Mile Grove, this county, in February, 1851, purchased a claim which he sold the following spring, and bought another in section 15, of Boyer township. He built one of the earliest mills in the county, the same being a combined grist- and saw-mill, propelled by the waters of the Boyer river-then a good sized stream, within whose banks flowed ample water to run the milling plant. This early mill was on the site of the Woodbine flour-mills of today, which have been abandoned on account of the big drainage ditch totally cutting off the supply of water. In 1855 Mr. BUTLER opened a general store at his mill, and his good wife, an English lady of rare intelligence and womanly Christian graces, was appointed postmistress of a postoffice which was called Woodbine for her old home in England. She survived her husband many years, dying at Woodbine, March 6, 1914, at the advanced age of ninety years. So great was the love and esteem for her that the Commercial Club took charge of the funeral, in a way, and all members attended. The auditorium was used instead of the church, and even that spacious room was full to crowding. She was of the religious faith of the Latter Day Saints and Elder Charles DERRY preached her funeral sermon. A portrait of this venerable woman-pioneer and Christian-appears elsewhere in this work.

Lorenzo D. BUTLER engaged in mercantile business at Woodbine, when the railroad entered this valley, in 1866. He also handled lumber and lost heavily by reason of fires. He died many years ago.

Eleven children were born to Mr. and Mrs. BUTLER, as follow: Mary A., Frank A., Agnes J., Thomas W., Edmond, Emma, Lorenzo D., James M., Ellen E., Frederick and Elbert B.

Frank HUPP, a business man of Woodbine, and his brother, Charles HUPP, a harness maker of the same place, are the grandsons of this worthy pioneer couple, they being sons of Mary A., the eldest child, who still resides at Woodbine.

It is related of the BUTLERs that during the hard winter of 1856-57 their small log house at the mill was filled every night with some storm-bound strangers, who were treated like members of the family. The names of such worthy people should never be lost sight of in the annals of a county, for they are as pure gold.

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