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Butler Ives, the surveyor, was from Michigan. His life, was indeed interesting, and you are quite right that his life is exceptionally well documented. This is in part due to the appearance of his name in some public documents, and partly due to the fact that his personal letters and papers have been preserved. Butler never married, and on his death his personal papers passed to a brother, who passed them to one of his sons. In 1931 that son, recognizing the historical importance of his uncle's work, donated all his letters and papers to several libraries and archives, where they are now available to researchers.
As you probably know, Butler in later life worked as a surveyor for the Central Pacific Railroad, during the construction of the transcontinental railroad. He was responsible for surveying much of the route from the Sierra Nevada East to Great Salt Lake. He is mentioned in historian Stephen Ambrose's recent book about the building of the railroad. Ambrose clearly used some of those Butler Ives letters in his research.
Incidentally, although one commonly sees the date 1872 for Butler's death, he actually died in December, 1871. The exact date isn't known, but it had to have been sometime between 12/22 and 12/26/1871.
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