Roderick Randum Butler (April 9, 1827 – August 18, 1902) was an American politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives for the 1st congressional district of Tennessee.
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Butler was born in Wytheville, Virginia, on April 9, 1827. His father died before Roderick was one year old.[1] In 1832 he was bound out as an apprentice to learn the tailor's trade in Johnson County, Tennessee. He studied law on his own, attended night school, was admitted to the bar in 1853, and he commenced practice in Taylorsville (now Mountain City), the county seat of Johnson County. He was appointed postmaster of Taylorsville by President Millard Fillmore. Butler was married to Emeline Jane Donnelly, the daughter of a wealthy Taylorsville area farmer. The couple had 11 children.[1]
He was a major of the First Battalion of the Tennessee Militia.
Roderick Butler served in the Tennessee Senate from 1859 to 1863 and from 1893 to 1901. During the Civil War, he served in the Union Army as lieutenant colonel of the Thirteenth Regiment, Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry from November 5, 1863, to April 25, 1864. He was a delegate to the Republican National Conventions in 1864, 1872 and 1876. In 1865, he was a delegate to the Tennessee state constitutional convention. He was a county judge and the judge of the first judicial circuit of Tennessee in 1865. He was chairman of the first state Republican executive committee of Tennessee. He was also a delegate to the Baltimore Border State Convention in 1867.[2]
After the Civil War, the Johnson County community of Smith's Mill was renamed Butler in his honor.[1]
In 1866 he was elected as a Republican to the Fortieth United States Congress. He won re-election to Congress three times, serving from March 4, 1867, to March 3, 1875. He was the chairman of the United States House Committee on the Militia during the Forty-third Congress. He was censured by the House of Representatives on March 17, 1870, for corruption in regard to an appointment to West Point. In 1874 he was unsuccessful in his candidacy for re-election to the Forty-fourth Congress. He was president of the Republican state conventions in 1869 and 1882.
He served in the Tennessee House of Representatives from 1879 to 1885. He was elected to the Fiftieth Congress, serving from March 4, 1887, to March 3, 1889, but he was not a candidate for renomination in 1888. He resumed the practice of law and died in Mountain City, Tennessee, on August 18, 1902. He was buried in Mountain View Cemetery in Mountain City. The "mansion" home in Mountain City that Butler built circa 1870 is a local landmark[3] and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
A grandson of Roderick Butler, Robert Reyburn Butler, represented an Oregon district in the U.S. House of Representatives.