Background
John Butler was born in Connecticut, United States in 1728. His parents: Walter Butler and Deborah Dennison, née Ely.
John Butler was born in Connecticut, United States in 1728. His parents: Walter Butler and Deborah Dennison, née Ely.
As a captain in the British military, he served in the French and Indian War (1754 - 1763) in engagements at Crown Point, Ticonderoga, and Ft. Frontenac. He became a trusted representative of Sir William Johnson, at first commanding Native American auxiliaries and later conducting Indian affairs.
With the coming of the American Revolution, Butler fled with his son and other loyalists (American colonials who felt allegiance to the English crown rather than the urge for independence of the Colonies) to Canada. He continued to take an active role in Indian affairs and in military activities along the frontier of New York. He participated in St. Leger's fruitless British expedition of 1777. Then he began the recruitment of a band of refugee loyalists, called Butler's Rangers. As a major, he commanded these and other loyalists and their Native American allies in an invasion of Pennsylvania's Wyoming Valley in the spring of 1778.
His march culminated in an encounter with American colonial troops near Forty Fort, with the subsequent surrender of that post on July 4, 1778. The slaughter of some of the captives (the Wyoming Valley "massacre") has been the occasion of later, highly colored criticism of Butler. Actually, he seems to have tried, with some success, to limit the scope of the atrocities. In the following year Butler's Rangers and the Native American allies were defeated at Newton during the only pitched battle of the American general John Sullivan on his expedition into Iroquois country.
In 1780 Butler reached his highest rank, that of lieutenant colonel. His military career was an exceptional one for a loyalist leader: he and his fellow exiles, his son and Sir John Johnson, were successful in raising, commanding, and making real use for the British of the loyalists who had fled from the rebel forces among the Americans. The Revolutionaries responded with the Act of Attainder in 1779 and by confiscating all Butler's property in New York.
After the war the British rewarded Butler's services with a pension and a grant of land near Niagara. Butler was prominent in the development of a Tory settlement there and served as Indian commissioner. He lived the remainder of his years in exile, respected by the British and by other refugees for his loyalty and detested by his former fellow colonists in the United States. He died in 1796.
He was famous for his military exploits along the New York and Pennsylvania frontiers. He participated in French and Indian War, American Revolutionary War and was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.
He is considered a key player in the founding of British North America and late eighteenth-century Canada. He became one of the political leaders of Upper Canada, later called Ontario. He was appointed as a Deputy Superintendent for the Indian Department, a Justice of the Peace, and the local militia commander. He was also prominent in establishing the Anglican Church and Masonic Order in Ontario.
Col. John Butler School in Niagara-On-The-Lake was named after him. In 2006, a life-sized bronze bust of Butler was installed at the Valiants Memorial in Ottawa.
In 1752, John Butler married Catharine (Catalyntje) Bradt, of Dutch ancestry. The couple raised five children (two others died in infancy).
Butler's eldest son also participated in loyalist military activities until he was killed in action in 1781. Butler was survived by their three sons and daughter.
Lieutenant Colonel
