WI BIO - Dane Co - BUTLER, James Davie
Biographical Review of Dane County, WI. Chicago: Biographical Review Pub. Co. 
1893. Vol II, pp 387-390

James Davie BUTLER, LL.D., was born in Rutland [Rutland County], VT, 15 Mar 
1815. His father, a merchant, had settled in Green Mountain village in 1787, 
but was born in Boston [Suffolk County, MA], in which city his lineage has 
been traced as far as 1635, or five years after its foundation. The subject 
of his sketch was graduated from Middlebury College in 1836, and after a year 
at Yale, as post graduate, returned to his Alma Mater as a tutor, and on the 
death of one of the professors became an acting professor. In 1840 he 
finished the theological course at Andover [Windsor County, VT] where he at 
once became Abbott Resident, a sort of fellow. During the second year of his 
occupancy of this position he accepted an invitation to become the traveling 
companion of Professor E. A. PARK on a European tour.

In 1842 Trans-Atlantic travel was a novelty and somewhat adventurous. No one 
from Rutland or Andover had ever been abroad. The tourist embarked from NY, 
23 Jun 1842 on a sailing packet and were 47 days in reaching Hamburg. While 
in Germany they made their trips on foot and in the diligence. Their two 
chief pedestrian tours were in the Hartz Mountains and along the Rhine from 
Mainz to Bonn. They lingered at Cassel, Frankfort, Heidelberg, and other 
cities, and then separated with a view to learn the language.

James Davie BUTLER attended lectures in Jena, Berlin, and Halle, but in Jan 
1843 set out for Rome, halting at Dresden, Prague, Vienna and Venice on the 
way. He continued in Rome, Naples, Florence and other Italian cities for 
five months, rambled six weeks in the Alps, half as long in France and then 
reached the British Isles. In this British domain railroads were already 
common, but Mr. BUTLER was not too late for a ride on the top of a 
four-in-hand from Dover to Gretna Green and far into Scotland. He reached 
home for a Thanksgiving dinner in NY.

Few persons had at that day made so extended and leisurely a trip abroad, 
hence Mr. BUTLER's lectures on his travels were popular. Among his subjects 
were: the Architecture of St. Peter's at Rome; Naples and its Neighborhood; 
Visits to Pompeii; Alpine Wanderings; German Provincial Life; European 
Peculiarities; and one or more of these lectures he was called upon to 
deliver 300 times in , or near, New England. During this European journey he 
had been a foreign correspondent for the NY "Observer."

Mr. BUTLER supplied the pulpits of two Congregational Churches, in West 
Newbury [Essex County], MA, and Burlington [Chittenden County], VT, half a 
year in each. In the fall of 1845 he became a professor in Norwich 
University, VT, and acted as president after General RANSOM departed for 
Mexico. At the end of two years, in 1847, he was installed pastor of the [p 
388] Congregational Church at Wells River, [County], VT, and after a ministry 
of three years there he was called to the church in South Danvers (now 
Peabody), [Essex County], MA, a pastorate which he left within about two 
years for another in Cincinnati, OH, where he remained about the same length 
of time. The climate there proving unhealthy to his family, James Davie 
BUTLER, in 1854, was inaugurated Professor of Greek in Wabash College, 
Crawfordsville [Montgomery County], IN. Here he taught four years, until the 
ague of the Wabash valley rendered a call to a similar chair in the State 
University of WI irresistible. Here he taught for nine years, and then in 
1867 bade farewell to professional duties.

In 1862 Professor BUTLER received the degree of LL. D. from his Alma Mater. 
In 1847 he had been elected a member of the New England Historic Genealogical 
Society. At this time (1892) only four of those who had been earlier members 
survive. Ever since 1854 he has been a member of the American Antiquarian 
Society, at Worcester, MA, and in 1892 his standing out-ranked that of all 
the others save six. Historical research has always been a favorite pursuit 
with Mr. BUTLER, and his two addresses before the VT Historical Society were 
the first ever published by that Association. One of these was delivered at 
the capitol at Montpelier, VT, while he was standing between two cannons 
taken at Bennington, and just then, 20 Oct 1848, restored by Congress to VT. 
In preparing for this occasion Mr. BUTLER had found the last survivor of 
those who had fought at Bennington, 71 years before. The narrative of this 
veteran, Thomas MELLEN, was introduced into his speech by Mr. BUTLER, and a 
copy of the whole was sent by the Legislature to every town in the State.

While residing in OH and IN, Professor BUTLER gave addresses on historical 
subjects, and in 1870 he was invited to visit his native town, Rutland, VT, 
to deliver a historical address at its centenary. On 05 Oct, Rutland had 
become the second town in VT and her celebration was the finest that had bee 
witnessed in the State. From the time of Professor BUTLER's entry into WI he 
has been an active member of the State Historical Society. Usually as an 
official of some kind, he has served during the past few years as vice 
president. He was the person who discovered the Perkins collection of copper 
implements, aided in keeping them in the State, and delivered an address in 
the capitol concerning them, which was illustrated by heliotypes. This 
address is sought for by prehistoric specialists the world over. His papers 
for the State Historical Society, collections on the copper age, speeches on 
the same topic in Washington before the American Philosophical Society, in 
Worcester before the American Antiquarian Society, were specimens of his 
antiquarian research. In the department of American history he has been 
equally interested. His monographs on the naming of America, on portraits of 
Columbus, American Pre-revolutionary Bibliography, and Revolutionary Thunder 
may be mentioned. Among his published sermons are his farewell disclosure at 
Danvers, another at the burial of General RANSOM, who had been killed at the 
storming of Chepultepec [Blount County, TN]. Some of his educational 
publications were: Incentives to Mental Culture among Teachers, an address 
in Troy, NY, 1852, before the American Institute, 5,000 copies of which were 
printed by that association for gratuitous distribution; How a Dead Language 
Makes a Live Man; or a Defense of Classical Study, before the National 
Association at Detroit, and Commonplace Books, a lecture written after [p 
389] he had himself one for a quarter of a century, and which was declared by 
no means commonplace in half of States of the Union. In addition to these 
productions, his articles have appeared in various periodicals, Linnincott, 
Bobliotheca Sacra, the WI Academy, and the Genealogical Register for many 
years. More than 100 copies of his articles have been published in the NY 
Nation, and more than 1,000 others, partly letters during his journeys and 
more of them on his diversified studies, printed in Boston, New York, 
Chicago, and Cincinnati, he has preserved in nine octavos of clippings.

Two of his long vacations Professor BUTLER spent in Hartford, CT, and there 
wrote nearly all the letter-press of a volume of 399 pages entitled 
"Armsmear, the Home, Arm and Armory of Colonel Samuel Colt," a splendidly 
illustrated memorial brought of by his widow. In 1888 Professor BUTLER 
published "Buterliana," a genealogy of the descendants of May BUTLER and the 
families with which they had intermarried. His pamphlets on NE, onward from 
1869, had no small influence in turning the stream of migration in that 
direction. His paper on the Hapax Logomena, or words used once for all in 
Shakespeare, was everywhere recognized as a new departure in Shakespearean 
study and has often been reprinted in New York, Philadelphia, etc.

On the one hand Professor BUTLER has always been a recluse student, a 
bookworm; at other times he has abjured books for years. As a boy he walked 
150 miles to climb Mount Washington. In 1842-1843 he rambled over Europe for 
18 months. In 1867-1868 he repeated those early rambles and extended them to 
regions not before penetrated, as Spain, Poland, Turkey, Greece, Palestine, 
Egypt. On this journey he spent 30 days in a Syrian saddle, and more than 20 
journeying up the Nile. In 1878-1879 and 1884 he made two other European 
tours. Nor was he neglectful of American travel; in 1869 he went to CA and 
the Yosemite valley and during the trip was a guest in 10 U. S. forts west of 
the Missouri River. At this time he voyaged to the Sandwich Island [now 
Hawaiian Islands] in a sailing vessel, and while there went to the bottom of 
the crater of Kelauea, the largest known volcano. At the opening of the 
Northern Pacific, in 1883, he first saw Oregon and went through Puget sound 
into British Columbia. These pioneers slept 13 nights on the ground, 
unsheltered by tents. Early in 1883 he turned his attention southwest and 
traveled through Texas in Mexico, and in 1887 he spent the winter in Cuba and 
Florida, with a sojourn in Charleston just after the earthquake. Thus by 
degrees this wanderer trod the soil of every existent State and the 
Territories that were to round out the 44.

The desire and love for travel grew with the gratifications it afforded until 
in Jul 1890, nothing would satisfy Dr. BUTLER but a trip round the world. At 
this date he started to put Puck's girdle round the earth; not in 40 minutes, 
however, but in 17 months. Reaching Vancouver by the Canadian route, and 
failing of a Pacific steamer he traveled 1,100 miles to San Francisco by the 
Shasta railroad. Embarking on the "Belgic," 12 Aug 1890, he landed at 
Yokohama on the 28th. From there he went to Kamadura, Tokio, Kioto, Kobe, 
Nagasaki. Voyaging through the Island and Yellow seas he arrived in Shanghai. 
He then pushed up the Yan-tse-Kiang to Wu-hu-Kian, Kiu-Kiang, and Han-Kow. 
He was also several weeks in southern China, touching at Macao, Hong Kong and 
Canton. He was the first WI man seen by the American Consul, who had been 
there 10 years. In passing to Ceylon he touched at Singapore and Penang, 
went up a Ceylonese mountain to Candy and Perendenia. His landing in India 
was at Tuttieorin. In the south he saw Madura, Trichinopoly, Tanjore, 
Kumbieonam, and Madras. Thence he sailed to Calcutta and then railed to the 
foot of Mount Everest, the highest peak in the Himalayas. Returning to the 
Ganges he lingered in the cities of the great Monguls, Benares, Lucknow, 
Agra, Fatepur, Delhi, Jaypore, Amber, Ahmadabad, and thus reached Bombay. A 
voyage as long as from NY to Liverpool brought him to Ismailia. As he had 
been there before he had already swung round the great circle, but he went up 
the Nile again with double zest, and explored many unbeaten paths in Greece, 
Sicily and Italy. After hasty surveys of the Alps, Germany and France, he 
began his longest voyage in time. This was from Hull to Stavanger, Bergen, 
Drotheim [Trondheim], Molde, Tromsoe [Tromso], and Hammerfest to the North 
Cape. He thus walked about in the most northern towns of the world, and 
thanks to clear weather, beheld the midnight sun at its fullest and best. 
This world circling begun at the age of 76, was performed without any 
traveling companion. It brought him into regions where cholera was rife and 
he once fell down as if dead from sunstroke, but the trip was accomplished 
without sickness or accident. The happy rover daily met new friends, who 
made his world wider, or old ones, who made it warmer. He also seemed to 
rejuvenate and his advice to every friend was to do likewise.

James Davie BUTLER was married in 1845 to Anna, daughter of Rev. Joshua 
BATES, for more than 20 years president of Middlebury College, chaplain of 
Congress, etc. Professor and Mrs. BUTLER lost a young daughter in MA and a 
son by cholera in Cincinnati, OH, but four of their children survive. Anna 
(BATES) BUTLER died at Superior [Douglas County], WI, 09 Jun 1892, and was 
buried in Madison, Dane County, WI.

Submitted by Cathy Kubly