Andrew Butterfield, Methodist Preacher, 1892-1899
By Marisue Potts Powell
A. E. Butterfield, a circuit riding Methodist preacher, was called to help the Reverend J. J. Methvin with his work among the Comanches, Kiowas, and Apaches and served from 1892 to 1899. He wrote, “The thrill of seeing the great valley full of indian tepees, every one toward the rising sun, was more than my power of description can express. A chill came over me when I saw men with only blankets on and barefoot, the women with only shawls and no shoes. Their moccasins were of no use in the snow. More than 4,000 Comanches, Kiowa, and Apaches were in that camp.”
Butterfield amassed a collection of photographs taken in later years on what was the reservation and that collection is now in the Motley County Museum. Copies of these photographs were shared with the Quanah Parker Family Society at the National Cowboy Symposium in Lubbock on September 10-11.
While his wife Mary was busy teaching, Butterfield walked from tepee to tepee, talking through an interpreter and praying wherever anyone would listen. When he heard the Big Looking Glass band was without a preacher, he borrowed a wagon and team and moved his family to the modest parsonage on the Little Washita. (Little Washita United Methodist Church is still in the Methodist conference.)
Though the government had contracted by treaty to feed and clothe them for 33 years if they stayed on the reservation, most of the tribes were getting only half enough to eat. Butterfield shared the little he had but was almost as impoverished as they were.
“The change in family life that we required was hard for them to grasp,” he wrote. The man must have only one wife and promise to work and support her, instead of having her do all the menial work. A change in housing eventually replaced the tepees with their attendant dirt floors, filth, and vermin with small frame houses.
The missionary made a study of Indian legends and was invited by Chief Looking Glass to attend a peyote ceremony. Lone Wolf, a friend of Quanah’s and his father-in-law for a short time, had a son, Delois K. Lonewolf who became a preacher of the Methodist Church and had a granddaughter who married the Rev. Matthew Botone of the same church.
During their seven years among the Indians, the Butterfields suffered many hardships and setbacks. They experienced poverty right along with those to whom they were ministering. Their small daughter Anna was bitten by a rabid skunk in their tepee; with no medical help available they relied on prayer and faith in God. A young son was not so lucky and died in infancy.
Upon his death in 1945, Butterfield’s funeral service included members of the Tahquechi family of the Comanche tribe of Lawton. A young maiden dressed in native apparel gave the Comanche interpretation in sign language as hymns were sung in tribute to the colorful pioneer pastor.
