Robinson, Wm. Hedges

English

University of Denver

Denver Law Review Volume 14 Issue 2 Article 3 July 2021 Hugh Butler - The Tenacious Scot Wm. Hedges Robinson Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.du.edu/dlr Recommended Citation Wm. Hedges Robinson, Hugh Butler - The Tenacious Scot, 14 Dicta 37 (1936-1937). This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Denver Law Review at Digital Commons @ DU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Denver Law Review by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ DU. For more information, please contact jennifer.cox@du.edu,dig-commons@du.edu. HUGH BUTLER-THE TENACIOUS SCOTBy WM. HEDGES ROBINSON, of the Denver BarT seemed to the impatient young lawyer that every twistin the stage road must bring Central City in sight; butthe coach rumbled and rattled over the rough road with-out seeming to come nearer to the town. Rugged mountainsthat grudgingly gave way for the creek and the road, rearedhigh in every direction. To the boy, there seemed to be noend either to the jostling or to the road.Suddenly the coach whipped around a corner and Cen-tral City was before him. A sharp sense of disappointmentcame over Hugh. Surely this huddled bunch of shacks couldnot be the far-famed city.A long, dusty street on the right side of the gulch, inter-cepted by a narrow way about three hundred feet long, werethe only thoroughfares. On the left side of the gulch, slab-sided houses rested on poles and scaffolding over the mountainstream. A few stores were crowded together in an incrediblysmall space. All buildings were of frame-a perpetual men-ace of fire. On every side pock-marked mountains presseddown upon the town.Hugh climbed down from the stage and registered at theSt. Nicholas hotel. Of that hotel, perhaps the most that canbe said is that board was five dollars a day. Born of a Scottishmother, Hugh Butler ever rebelled at the prices prevailing atmining camps. His thrifty nature could never adjust itselfto the fact that in Central City he paid more and received lessfor his money than any other place in the world. Theheritage from his mother and that from his father were everat war in this mining camp.From his Irish father, he had inherited a love for beauty.The tall mountains etched against a sunset sky and the moun-tains scarred with mines, the calmness of the faraway placesin the hills and the turbulence of the town-never could bereconciled in his heart. Even this first evening in CentralCity, he was deeply conscious of the fact that beauty andugliness crowded upon each other here.He was puzzled equally by the language. Everyonetalked of the amount of "feet" that he had. Butcher, baker,DICTAcandlestick-maker would without the slightest provocationexcitedly describe a claim that he owned, and pull odd pieces ofrock from his pockets. Nearly every citizen in the town car-ried a specimen. Much of the currency was in the form ofgold dust, claims for footage, or assignments of claims. Butthis language now so puzzling to Hugh Butler was to becometo him as familiar as terms of the law; for he was to ownclaims, mines, and specimens of his own, and a good manyof his fees would be paid in feet.All of this was Central City-the most populated, pro-gressive and prosperous place in the State. In fact CentralCity was the Colorado metropolis long before the Queen Cityof the Plains was anything more than a frontier trading postwith a few stores on Blake Street.Hugh lost little time in establishing himself. In part-nership with a young lawyer, he opened an office on MainStreet under the name of Royle and Butler.The following year (1864) Hugh Butler was elected tofill out the unexpired' term as prosecuting attorney for GilpinCounty. He was re-elected, but resigned in 1866 because ofthe pressure of his private practice. While prosecuting attor-ney, he appeared for the people in the case of Paton v. ThePeople, 1 Colo. 77, which was one of the first criminal casesto be heard in the territorial Supreme Court. The case in-volved the right of the City of Black Hawk to regulate andtax saloons, gambling, and bawdy houses when such a righthad been granted to the county commissioners under an actof legislature, which in 1861 created the County of Gilpinand made Central City the county seat.Illustrative of the private practice which Butler com-manded is the fact that he appeared as counsel in twelve of thenearly three hundred cases reported in the First Colorado. Atthis date there were approximately 130 lawyers in the state,and the number of cases in which Butler appeared is only out-done by Sam E. Browne, whose appearance in the SupremeCourt have outnumbered all other lawyers in this state, andAlfred Sayre who was later a partner of Butler. It is inter-esting to note that the first case, Smith v. Cisson (1 Colo. 29)in which Butler appears as 'counsel in the Supreme Court heDICTAlost, and that the procedure questions there involved wereagain to plague him.In 1867, he was elected to the upper house of the terri-torial legislature, and re-elected again when his term expired.His political career which had begun with the district attor-neyship, terminated with the senatorship so far as public hold-ing was concerned. However, he continued to be an activeand aggressive Democrat for many years. In 1876 he wasselected chairman of the state central committee of the Demo-cratic party, managing its first state campaign. Six years laterhe ran for state senator from the Denver district and was de-feated. With the exception of serving as mayor of CentralCity in 1871, Butier held only two political offices, althoughin 1882 Governor Grant offered to appoint him as superiorcourt judge in Denver. Butler refused the appointment be-cause of an extensive and profitable practice.It was not unusual for his practice to compel him to takea trip to the East. On one of these trips, Butler met AnnieThatcher Machie, daughter of John Milton Thatcher of Ken-tucky and widow of Charles M. Machie. They were marriedon February 13, 1872, and their life together was one of raredevotion. No children were born of this marriage, and whenButler died on June 27, 1912, he left no surviving relationsin America, his wife having died several years before.His marriage marks a turn in Butler's life. So far hispractice had been the rough and ready practice of the frontierwith its self-created laws and procedure. Some stabilizationhad begun to enter the law in Colorado, and some of thecauses for its roughness had begun to disappear. When inter-national financiers began to manipulate silver, they destroyedthe towns of Central City, Black Hawk, and a hundred othersilver mining towns. They wiped out the picturesqueness ofthe Teller House, the Opera House, and the Barton Housewithin whose walls such personages as General Sheridan, Jef-ferson Davis, Jay Gould, Baron Rothschild, Count Turenne,Lord Dunraven and others had stayed. Partly because ofthis changing scene, partly because Mrs. Butler wished to benear her brother, Joseph Thatcher who was president of theDenver National Bank, Butler moved to Denver. His re-moval was the first of a general exodus of lawyers who hadDICTAmade the bar of the little Kingdom of Gilpin the mostbrilliant of the West.While not neglecting his mining interests, Butler's prac-tice changed radically. In 1874 he became a member of thefirm of Sayre Zd Wright, changing the name to Sayre, Wright&$ Butler. This firm controlled practically all of the corporatepractice in the state and was frequently referred to as the"trust." It numbered among its clients, the First NationalBank, the Colorado National Bank, the Chaffee interests,Kansas, Pacific and Denver railroads, the gas and the watercompany, and the city railway company.The third and final phase of Butler's life commenced in1892 when he accepted a professorship in the University ofColorado Law SchoOl, to teach common law and code plead-ing. This position he filled with a quiet distinction which abackground founded upon an extensive practice and a phi-losophy well suited to these subjects permitted him to enjoy.His Scottish heritage gave him a tenacity which wasfrequently illustrated in his trial tactics and his Irish heritagemade him delight in legal legerdemain. One case, which heultimately lost and in which he was a principal figure, showsthese traits which made it said of him that if he representeda defendant, the cause was never tried until both parties weredead and generally not then.The facts of the case were that William Linn, owner ofan undivided interest in the American Mine, assigned his in-terest to Butler and Charles Wright on January 24, 1879, forcertain monies advanced by Butler. The assignment per-mitted Butler and Wright to enter into possession and towork the property, paying the debt to themselves out of theproceeds. It later developed that the Little Sliver and theAmerican had overlapping claims. This dispute was settledby transfering practically all of the interest in the Americanto the Little Sliver and operating both mines under a generalmanagership, partially controlled by Butler and Wright. Inthe meantime, Lewis C. Rockwell by assignment had securedLinn's interests and brought an action alleging that Butlerand Wright had defeated the contract by the conveyance tothe Little Sliver and therefore owed the plaintiff $5,000,which was the balance due for Linn's interest. The suit wasDICTAcommenced in 1884 and brought to the Supreme Court in1885 (Linn v. Butler, 8 Colo. 355), where it was remandedto the trial court for further pleading and trial. In the mean-time Linn died and in December, 1885, Butler moved for adismissal because the action being personal did not surviveLinn. This motion was overruled and in April, 1886, thedefendants filed an answer, after which the plaintiff requestedthat the administrator of Linn (David Gage) be joined asa party plaintiff. The court ruled in January, 1887, thatGage should be made a party and a trial was had in Decemberwhen a verdict was returned for Rockwell. Filing a bond,Butler appealed to the Supreme Court and the decision wasthere affirmed in 1890. (Butler v. Rockwell, 14 Colo. 125.)Then Butler appealed to the United States SupremeCourt alleging that an act of the state legislature creatingsupreme court commissioners to report to the court on referredcases was unconstitutional; and since the hearing in the statesupreme court had proceeded in this fashion, the decision ofthat court was repugnant to the federal constitution. TheUnited States Supreme Court held that since the federal ques-tion was not properly submitted to the state court it wouldnot rule upon the question. (Butler v. Gage, 138 U. S. 52,34 Sup. Ct. 869.)Rockwell then commenced a suit on the bond filed in thestate supreme court; and Butler again defended on the groundthat since the commissioner and not the Supreme Court hadacted, there had been no affirmance of judgment and hence noright of action on the bond had occurred. This contentionwas overruled in 1893 (Butler v. Rockwell, 17 Colo. 290)and a judgment for $9,008.33 was given but the case re-manded for a technical error in the trial court's judgmentrelating to the rate of interest. Even after three law suits andfour appeals involving eight years, it is said, that Butler andWright never did pay the full judgment, but compromisedfor a lesser sum.Law to Hugh Butler was very much a game which wasplayed by the rules of procedure and practice. His array ofmotions and demurrers in a case was frequently astounding,and his ingenuity in delaying a case when he represented thedefendant was amazing.DICTAProbably no other early Colorado lawyer more cannilyand resourcefully took advantage of the technicalities of thelaw. Even among a bar which delighted in the mazes ofcommon law pleading, Butler was renowned for his barrageof legal motions.However, law was not the only subject which engrossedhim. His interests were wide and varied. Shortly after com-ing to Colorado in 1863 he began to acquire mining prop-erties, many of which involved him personally in litigation,as for example see Butler v. Hinckley, 17 Colo. 523. Heappeared as counsel in many mining cases, notably that con-cerning the Bassick mine at Querida in Custer County, whichcase was taken to the United States Supreme Court. It wouldbe difficult to estimate what sums of money he invested inmining, certainly $20,000 and probably more; but none ofit yielded any great return. It is doubtful if he much morethan broke even in his mining ventures.He was also engaged in several large real estate adven-tures, being one of those who platted the Town of Edgewateron April 22, 1889. He was one of the organizers of theMiners and Mechanics Institute. He helped create the FireDepartment of Central City, and he held many chairmanshipsin civic enterprises.Because of Butler's interest, the Miners and MechanicsInstitute deserves some further mention in his biography. Itwas organized in January, 1867, under a territorial chartergranted by Governor Cummins. A combined library, chau-tauqua, museum and scientific institute, the association wasvery prosperous for the first years of its life. It gathered to-gether 1,000 volumes, and had a large membership whichyearly contributed dues of ten dollars. For several years,Butler served as chairman of its executive committe, and itwas he who in 1873 informed the Institute that its libraryhad been sold to the city for $300 for school purposes, thusannouncing the beginning of the end of the Institute whosebuildings were shortly afterwards destroyed in the big fire.In his seventy-second year, the year of his death, Butlercould proudly review a long and useful life. Educator, law-yer, politician, he brought to each of these a full measure ofdistinction. His life was like his speeches without froth orDICTApyrotechnic display. As a charter member of the ColoradoBar Association and of the Denver Club, where he residedduring the final years of his life, as a Mason and KnightTemplar, and as one of the first eight to be admitted to prac-tice in the federal district court in Colorado, Hugh Butlerwas regarded as an outstanding lawyer and civil leader ofhis day.Hugh Butler could well be proud of the road that he hadjourneyed. It had been a long trip and he bore it well. Ithad started in Airdire, Scotland, near Lanarkshire on May31, 1840, crossed the ocean to Hawesville, Kentucky, thirteenyears later, moved in 1857 to Lewiston, Illinois, where Hughtaught school for three years and studied law for two more,then in 1862 led to Chicago for a short time before the longtrek was made to Colorado in the following year. And whenthe final journey was made to an unknown destination onthat June evening, Hugh Butler eagerly faced it with thecourage that was his throughout life.MORE ABOUT ABSTRACTSHayes R. Hindry, of the Denver Bar, submits the following:MR. ALECK DENTON, 1214 Marcus Bldg., Prewit, Texas.Prewit, Texas. January 4, 1936.Dear Sir: I have examined the abstract of title in seven parts cov-ering the South 236Y2 acres out of Edmonton Survey in -----------County which you are preparing to buy and herewith render myopinion.Don't buy the G ----------- land. It has been my sorrow andburden to look over several horrible examples of a title examiner'snightmare, but this alleged title takes the cut glass flyswatter. It is myprivate belief that .you couldn't cure the defects in this title if you suedeveryone from the Spanish Government (who started this Mess) ondown to the present possessor of the land, who is there by virtue of apeculiar instrument optimistically designated by the abstractor as a"General Warranty Deed."In the first place, the field notes of the Spanish Grant do not close;I don't think it is possible to obtain a confirmation grant since the lastunpleasantness in 1898. In the second place, there were nineteen heirsof the original grantee, and only three of them joined in the executionof the conveyance unto the next party in this very rusty chain of title,which is a major defect in the first place. We might rely on limitationhere, except that I am reliably informed that nobody has succeeded in

Hugh Butler - The Tenacious Scot

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