DEACON GEORGE L. BUTLER AND FAMILY

George Little Butler was a son of John P. and Aphia B. Butler, his wife, of Plymouth, N. H. The family of these worthy parents consisted of eleven sons and daughters, among whom George L., the first, was born August 22,1817. During his minority he remained at home with his parents, but in April, 1839, came to Bradford, Vt., and lived for some time in the friendly family of Mr.  John B. Woodward, of this place. His main object in coming was to attend the Academy here, as much of the time for two or three years as he could, consistently with paying his expenses in the meanwhile by manual labor and teaching, for some part of each year. But a long and expensive sickness, in the course of the first year, with its consequent pecuniary embarrassments, compelled him to abandon that worthy object, which he has ever since deeply regretted. On recovering his health in a good degree, he engaged in the business of carriage making and painting, which he followed with fair success for fifteen years, when, finding the occupation too laborious for his not very firm state of health, he gave it up for that of a furniture dealer and undertaker, in which at this writing he still continues, his establishment being the next immediately south of the Trotter Hotel.  Mr. Butler was from early youth extremely fond of music, and being possessed of a good voice, and using to the best advantage his limited means and opportunities for acquiring a knowledge of that interesting science and art, he became in early manhood a competent choir leader and successful vocal music teacher, and was thus occupied in his native town for two years. In Bradford and adjacent towns he taught with good success, generally in the winters, for twenty-five consecutive years, and led the choir of the Congregational church in this place for thirty years, without a quarrel!

Mr. Butler, enjoying in a high degree the respect and confidence of his townsmen, was elected Town Clerk in 1851, and Representative to the State Legislature in 1860-61, serving not only in-the regular sessions of those years, but also in the extra session of April, 1861, in view of the impending war of the rebellion.  In youth Mr. Butler was divinely led, as he then and has subsequently believed, to consecrate himself to the blessed Saviour, and at the age of eighteen united with the Congregational church in his native town, and so continued until in 1844, July the 5th, his membership was duly transferred to the church of the same denomination in Bradford. In July, 1866, he was elected a deacon in this church, and also its treasurer, in which offices he has given good satisfaction.

In his domestic relations, Deacon Butler has been fortunate and happy. His first wife was Miss Jane Clark, a daughter of Mr. Charles and Mrs. Harriet Daton Clark, formerly of this town. They were united in marriage October 30, 1844. Mrs. Butler had united with the Congregational church here the year before her marriage, and continued a beloved member during the remainder of her days. She was a kind and affectionate friend, a cheerful, loving wife, a devoted and withal truly Christian mother, and in declining health and the near prospect of death was divinely sustained and comforted. She.  died of consumption, June 7, 1855, in the thirty-ninth year of her age, leaving two children, George C. and Alice Jane, both of whom became hopefully pious in their youth, and united with the same church to which their mother had belonged.

George Clark Butler, born December 3,1849, was united in marriage with Miss Addie B. Taplin, of Corinth, December 3, 1872, and has subsequently been employed as clerk, or book-keeper, in a railroad office at St. Albans, Vt., where he and his wife reside. They have one daughter.

Miss Alice Jane Butler, born July 1, 1851, married, December 4, 1871, Mr. John T. Cutter, Jr., a grain and flour dealer of Plymouth, N. H., and there has her home.  In the course of two or three years after the death of his first wife, Deacon Butler married, April 6,1858, Mrs.  Laura A. Eastman, an estimable widow lady of Newbury, Vt., who proved to be a great blessing, not only to him, personally, but to his children also, whom she cordially received as her own, and by them was at once and permanently highly esteemed in filial love and confidence.  Mrs. Butler is a beloved member of the same church with her husband. They at this date are happily living, as for years they have been, in their pleasant " Suburban Cottage," a little north of Bradford village, built in 1859, from a draft entirely his own.   Biographie Index

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