Biographical Sketch of Charles Henry Dutcher, Johnson County, Missouri, Butler >From "History of Johnson County, Missouri," by Ewing Cockrell, Historical Publishing Company, Topeka, Cleveland, 1918. ********************************************************************** Charles Henry Dutcher, a prominent banker and retired educator, was born February 17, 1841, in Pike county, Illinois, son of Squire and Elizabeth A. (Townsend) Dutcher, both of whom were natives of New York. Squire Dutcher was born in 1806 in Columbia county, a member of a high- ly respected family of moderate circumstances. He was reared on a farm and all his life was spent in hard labor. In early manhood, he learned the carpenter's trade and he became very skillful and dexterous in this vocation. While residing at Sandlake, Rensselaer county, New York, Mr. Dutcher became acquainted with Miss Townsend and at that place they were united in marriage. Mr. and Mrs. Dutcher left the state of New York in 1839 to establish a new home in the West, which was then a wilderness infested with Indians and wild animals. Many of their friends no doubt thought it was a rash, foolhardy, dangerous thing to do and parted sadly from the young couple, convinced that the savage red men would never allow them to reach the new country. The Dutcher family traveled by canal to Buffalo, up Lake Erie to Cleveland, Ohio, down the canal to Portsmouth, down the Ohio to its mouth, and then up the Mississippi until they had reached what is now the western part of Pike county, Illinois. Across the wild, unsettled, open prairie they traveled until a fertile spot was reached near the present site of Barry, where the family settled. Squire Dutcher spent the remainder of his life at this place and here the children were reared to maturity amid the scenes of primitive, pioneer life. All the privations and hardships incidental to life in a new country were bravely and cheer- fully borne by the father and mother, who wisely set an example for their children, an example of uncomplaining endurance of the trials and afflictions of this existence that will never be forgotten. Squire Dutcher's death occurred at the home of his son, Albert, in Kirksville, Missouri, January 5, 1888, where he had been spending several years living a quiet retirement. Mr. and Mrs. Dutcher were good people, in- defatigable in right doing, earnestly and scrupulously exact in the performance of every duty imposed upon them. On the farm in Pike county, Illinois, Charles Henry Dutcher was reared to manhood. His boyhood days were spent in assisting his father with the farm labor and attending the district school, which was located near his home. Later, he was a student for one year at the Christian University at Canton and then he entered the Kentucky State University at Harrodsburg, where he pursued his studies for five years, graduating with the class of June, 1864, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Arts. During the Civil War, the work of the institution was interrupted slightly but was not seri- ously handicapped when the buildings of the State University were temporarily confiscated, for hospital purposes, by the authorities representing the Confederate government. Mr. Dutcher and his colleag- ues were obliged to attend recitations, held in the churches, the Masonic Temple, the rear rooms of store buildings, and not infrequently on the street, where the students would be seated on the curbstones. Through all the trying times of the long conflict the work of the University was never abandoned, although it was continued much of the time under very adverse conditions. Practically the entire session of 1862 and 1863, Mr. Dutcher served as volunteer nurse in both the Union and Confederate hospitals at Harrodsburg. The first year after Charles Henry Dutcher had completed his college course he was employed as pro- fessor in a boys school at Danville, Kentucky. The succeeding eight years were spent in teaching in private schools and academics in Boyle, Marion and Garrard counties, Kentucky. In 1872 and 1873, Mr. Dutcher was principal of the city schools of Kirksville, Missouri and from 1873 until 1877 he held the chair of natural science and Latin in the Kirks- ville Normal School. In the latter year he was called to the Cape Girardeau Normal School to assume the presidency of that institution. This school had been disrupted by factional quarrels, but Mr. Dutcher's conservative, businesslike procedure in the management of the institu- tion restored harmony and placed the school on a firm, substantial basis. In November, 1880, he resigned the position of president to engage in the banking business in Butler, Missouri. But, greatly pre- ferring school work, in June, 1881, he accepted an election to the chair of natural science in the Warrensburg State Normal School, which position he filled until 1892, at which time he retired from the pro- fession of teaching. Mr. Dutcher was a true educator. His career in the teaching profession was pre-eminently successful. He possesses the rare gift of ability to impart knowledge and among his students are many who have attained prominence in the professional and business world, among whom are John R. Kirk, ex-state superintendent of public instruction of Missouri, who is now president of the Kirksville Normal School; and W. T. Carrington, another ex-state superintendent of public instruction of Missouri, who is now president of the Springfield Normal School. In December, 1880, Mr. Dutcher and William E. Walton estab- lished in Butler, Missouri, the Exchange Bank, a private financial institutioin having a capital of thirty-seven thousand dollars. One year later, this bank was changed to the Butler National Bank with a capital stock of sixty-six thousand dollars and the first year after organization Mr. Dutcher was president of the bank. It was afterward reorganized as the Missouri State Bank of Butler and has since been conducted as such under the laws of the state. Mr. Dutcher is still one of the principal stockholders of this bank as well as of the Walton Trust Company of butler, in the organization of which he was prominent. Mr. Dutcher was one of the founders of the Kirksville Savings Bank, at the time he was engaged in school work there in 1873, but he has since sold his interest in that banking institution. He assisted in the organization of the National Bank of Newton, Kansas, which was later sold, and Mr. Dutcher and his associates purchased the Park National Bank of Kansas City, Missouri, which bank they now own. He was one of the original incorporators of the Montana Savings Bank of Helena, Mon- tana, which bank began business with a capital stock of one hundred thousand dollars. During the panic of 1893, this bank went into liquidation, but within two years paid out in full and not a depositor or a stockholder was loser. At the present time, Mr. Dtucher is a stockholder in the Peoples National Bank of Warrensburg and also of the Bank of Foster. In August, 1872, C. H. Dutcher and Laura A. Tucker, of Jeffersontown, Kentucky, were united in marriage. To Mr. and Mrs. Dutcher were born three children: Lydia M., who died December 7, 1914; Flora B., at home; and Edwin T., a traveling salesman, who resides in Warrensburg. The mother died in 1880. In September, 1883 Mr. Dutcher married Mrs. Rella P. Lynes, of Boone county, Missouri. In 1895, Mr. Dutcher purchased a tract of land comprising 40 acres, located one and a half miles east of Warrensburg. He planted a young orchard on this place and in its growth he was keenly interested. He sold the place nine years later, but retained his interest in horticulture and devel- oped abilities along this line that have been recognized in various ways by the Missouri State Horticulture Society, of which he has been a member since December, 1892. He served as president of this associa- tion from 1905 until 1908, having filled the office of second vice president from 1901 until 1903, the first vice president and from 1903 until 1905. In 1907, Mr. Dutcher was appointed president of the State Board of Agriculture of Missouri by Governor Folk and served on that board four years. He still attends all the state meetings, however, and was present at the last one, which was held in December, 1916, at Kansas City, Missouri. He is a member of the Missouri Valley Horticul- tural Society, with which he affiliated in 1898, an organization which has been in existence since 1868. In 1918, this society will celebrate its semi-centennial anniversary. The territory covered by this assoc- iation includes all the counties of Missouri and Kansas contiguous to Kansas City, Missouri. Since February, 1866, Mr. Dutcher has been a member of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. He has had conferred upon him the Royal Arch Degree. In 1868, he affiliated with the Odd Fellows. Mr. Dutcher is a valued member of the Christian church, of which he was an elder for many years. When Mr. Dutcher was employed to teach his first school in Danville, Kentucky, immediately after com- pleting his university course, he was two thousand dollars in debt and had but seven dollars and fifty cents in his pocket. By the constant practice of industry and economy, he has accumulated a competence and he attributes his success to two excellent business principles: To live within his income and to make his surplus work. Mr. Dutcher is now in his seventy-sixth year and he might well be envied by men and women a score of years his junior. He has ever kept active physically and mentally and he is not yet an "old man." At their home on Market street Mr. and Mrs. Dutcher greet all their friends with the enthusiasm of youth and their friends are numbered by the score, both in this state and far beyond its confines. As a leader of men, various ele- ments have combined to clothe Mr. Dutcher with public influence, a child-like simplicity and purity of motive that placed him far above all suspicion of selfishness, the utter absence of everything facti- tious in matter or manner, a kindliness of nature that made him suscep- tible to every cry for human sympathy, a chivalry of sentiment that raised him above all the petty jelousies of public life, and a firmness of purpose, a force of will that has moved everything before it and which has won for him the respect and attention of the most learned scholars of Missouri. ==================================================================== USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or for presentation by other persons or organizations. 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