My Genealogy Hound

CAPT. JAMES BUTLER, of Brocton, who has owned and commanded nearly fifty vessels on the “Great Lakes,” was born at Thenford, in Northamptonshire, England, November 25, 1817, and is a son of Joseph and Ann (Batchelor) Butler. His parents were natives of Northamptonshire and united at an early age with the Methodist Episcopal church. They were an honest, hard-working couple, and came in 1832 to Ashtabula county, Ohio, when the cholera was raging in that section of country. Joseph Butler was a shepherd in England, but after coming to the United States he followed farming until his death, which occurred April 11, 1855, at the age of seventy-one years and three months. Mrs. Butler was a kind Christian woman, and passed from the scenes of this life at Geneva, Ashtabula county, Ohio, in 1878, at the ripe old age of ninety-five years.

James Butler, at fifteen years of age, came with his parents to Ohio, and on September 1, 1833, went to Lake Erie, where he resolved upon a sailor’s life for himself and embarked as a hand on a small schooner called the “Parrot,” on which he remained until it was laid up for the winter. The next spring he was offered a berth on the “Parrot” which some unaccountable impulse caused him to decline, and as the vessel sank when three hours out from harbor with all on board, he thinks it was a providential interposition that caused him not to go on board. He then worked his way to Detroit, where he spent his last ten cents for a loaf of bread and some cheese, upon which he managed to live for ten days, while a workshop afforded him a sleeping place. At the end of this time he went on board a steam-vessel and worked his way to Buffalo where he soon obtained the position of chief cook on a schooner at twelve dollars per month. In six months he obtained a promotion, and was successively promoted until he became captain, which position he held on different vessels for seventeen years. After forty years of active service on the lakes, during which time he never lost a vessel or a sailor, he came in 1876 to Brocton, where he built and now occupies one of the finest brick residences of that village. Of late years Capt. Butler has turned his attention to grape-growing at Brocton, where he has a very fine vineyard. He has owned twenty-three vessels, including everything from a scow to a brig. In 1861 he built the bark “A. P. Nichols” (named for his Buffalo attorney), and in the succeeding year the “Red White and Blue.” They were said to be the fastest vessels then on Lake Erie, and the latter-named one was pronounced when it was launched to be the largest and finest vessel on Lake Erie. He was also a ship merchant for some years in Buffalo. He has wrought out for himself the success of his life, and the commendable ambition of the poor boy has been more than realized in the position of the respected and influential citizen.

On June 12, 1876, Captain Butler united in marriage with Mrs. Sarah (Skinner) Maloney, of Brocton, and they went on a bridal trip to the old world, where they visited England and many other countries of Europe. They have one child, a daughter named Annie M. Captain Butler is a republican politically, has been for fourteen years a trustee and steward of the Methodist Episcopal church, and is one of the substantial citizens of Brocton.