Butler, Kentucky

The Holidays are over; Butler and its vicinity have resumed the even tenor of their ways.  In the absence of any intensely interesting events, I will endeavor to give a brief description of Butler as it is, and of its probably future. 

There are three stores here, all doing a good business. 

To begin with the lady, which is customary and proper:  Miss Mattie Yelton, a single lady, as the prefix denotes, has for several years carried on a very good business, attending to her own affairs but taking time to adorn her own residence and garden.  Whether Miss Yelton intends to extend her embellishment to introducing a “worser half,” is best known to herself, being peculiarly her own affair, and calling for no interference from me, farther than to wish, if such be her intention, that the object may be worthy of the fate in store for him. 

Robert F. Shaw, from Alexandria or near thereto, in Campbell county, has been quite successful in the mercantile way, and has achieved reputation as a tobacco speculator.  He has been in business some five years, and his enlarged store and dwelling are evidences of thrift and success. 

D. H. Armstrong, for several years a clerk for Stevenson & Co., about a year since commenced “on his own hook” and is making a good race.  He has a good knowledge of business, and bids fair to ascend the mercantile ladder. 

Dr. F. M. Harris has long been the physician of Butler.  Both from reputation and from personal knowledge, I can say that no physician in the county better understands his business.  Perfectly temperate, a reader and thinker, he brings to the sick-bed a calmness which bespeaks the man of knowledge, and which wins the confidence of the patient.  I know of no doctor either in city or country that I would prefer at my own or my family’s bedside, to Dr. Harris, of Butler. 

Esquire Yelton, who is magistrate and ferryman, and who, I have no doubt, has often set a man over the river (Licking) for ten cents, which ten cents was not five percent of the costs of court which the passenger paid previous to his return trip.  The ‘Squire is a pretty fair expounder of Statute law, and is great on Illinois tales. 

Major Wheeler is also a magistrate, but has been a public man for over forty years.  He was in the Kentucky Legislature five times, Sheriff of this county once, and is a hearty old gentleman of seventy-three years of age. 

David Bowling, conductor, Ed Easterbrook, engineer, and George Lewis, fireman, all of the wood train of the K. C. R. R., are all good residents of Butler and are all good and worthy citizens, holding offices in the Council of Butler.  Owning property here also, they conduce the enterprise and well being of the town.  Other railroad men also have homes here, but space forbids individual mention farther than they are, as a general thing, good citizens. 

Dudley Taylor, carpenter, and first Police Judge of Butler, C. C. Hanson, blacksmith and Police Judge, and L. Bechymer, Marshall, are worthy men, good machanics [sic], and efficient executives in enforcing the laws of our village. 

J. Madison, our industrious boot and shoemaker, is a worthy mechanic and is accumulating property.

Mr. R. W. Cowles, our P.M. and “mine host,” has done well, and it is evident from the improvements he has made that he knows “how to keep a hotel.”  He is a pretty well informed old gentleman, and expresses his sentiments with great openness. 

Mr. Chauncey Forward, painter, is a Benedick [bachelor], and is therefore a happy man.  A good workman is he. 

Besides the above there are a great many wagoners, laborers, bridge builders, single men, etc., which, for want of space, will necessarily remain nameless.  There is also a good class of farmers in and around Butler, and other enterprising men. 

P.S. The awkwardness in the construction of the above and other sentences is now irremediable.  Maybe the editor will kindly bear in mind that a helping hand in certain cases is very desirable, and will put it to the “proof.” (a pun is intended). . . . I have overlooked the “probable future” promised at the opening, which is sad (the omission, not the future.) 

from the Covington Journal, January 14, 1871