John Butler Autobiography, typescript, BYS-S, Pg.27
Things prospered with the Saints all over the city and the city still improved and looked well. I was called with Brother Louis [David Lewis?] to go on a mission into Illinois to preach the gospel to the people. We started in 1843 in July, but we did not have much success. We gathered out some few honest in heart, but the most of the folks were very bitter aginst us, and they were getting worse every day and were persecuting the Saints more and more; they were not so kind as they were when we first went there. The kindness diwindled away until it became hatred, and a Saint was an obnoxious thing in their sight. Well, we asked no odds of them if they would only leave us alone. We had brought them the word of life and salvation, and they could please themselves either to obey the commandments of God or let them alone. We fulfilled our mission by the hlep of God and returned home early in the spring of 1844. My wife bore me another son on the 28th of February. We named him after myself, John Lowe.