Caspar Butz

Caspar Butz
City Clerk of Chicago
In office
1876–1879
Preceded byJoseph K.C. Forrest
Succeeded byPatrick J. Howard
Member of the Illinois House of Representatives
from the 57th district
In office
1858–1860
Serving with Ebenezer Peck
Preceded byIsaac N. Arnold
A.F.C. Mueller
Succeeded bySolomon M. Wilson
Homer Wilmarth
Personal details
BornOctober 23, 1825
Hagen, Kingdom of Prussia
DiedOctober 19, 1885 (age 59)
Des Moines, Iowa, United States
Political partyRepublican

Caspar Butz (October 23, 1825 – October 19, 1885) was a German American journalist and politician, born in Hagen, Kingdom of Prussia, who served as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives from 1858 to 1860 and as City Clerk of Chicago from 1876 to 1879.

Biography

Butz was a Forty Eighter who immigrated to the United States in 1851, settling first in Boston. A journalist by trade, he quickly became politically active and joined the newly created Republican Party, serving as a political writer for both the Frémont and Lincoln campaigns. Butz himself was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1858, where he served alongside Ebenezer Peck as Representative from the 57th District.[1][2] Butz was actively involved in German language journalism in the United States, and held several positions in a number of publications, including the Illinois Staats-Zeitung and the Michigan Tribune, the latter of which he briefly owned.[3]

Butz died in Des Moines, Iowa in 1885, at the age of 59.

Butz's grave

References

  1. ^ Alfred Theodore Andreas (1884). History of Cook County, Illinois: From the Earliest Period to the Present Time ... A.T. Andreas. p. 348.
  2. ^ The Magazine of History with Notes and Queries. W. Abbatt. 1891. pp. 480–481.
  3. ^ Clarence Monroe Burton (2017). The City of Detroit, 1701 -1922, Volume 2. Jazzybee Verlag. ISBN 978-3-8496-5040-7.