High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Attorney Justin D. Butterfield (1790, Keene, New Hampshire – October 23, 1855, Chicago, Illinois) served in 1849-1852 as commissioner of the General Land Office of the United States. Appointed to this position in 1849 by the incoming Zachary Taylor administration, he is best known for having faced down, and defeated, another Whig candidate for the same job, Abraham Lincoln. In work of even greater importance, however, he was one of the inventors of the railroad land grant system for financing the construction of long-distance railroad infrastructure throughout the United States. He was also one of the foremost Gentile defenders of the rights of the Mormons in Illinois during the final period of Joseph Smith`s leadership at Nauvoo.