Last
month there was a most interesting reunion of the family of J. R. Butler
of Woodhouse, and H. B. Stringer of Port Dover, who was one of the
guests, has contributed the following reminiscences of the pioneer
Butlers to The Reformer:
In the winter of
1832-3 my father and my uncle, William Stringer, left their home near
Fenwick, in Pelham township, and settled in the Long Point District on
Lot 14 in the 3rd concession of Woodhouse. My father chose the east
half, Uncle William taking the west half.
When they came to
Woodhouse, Waters Whiting was living in a log house he had built on the
east half of Lot 14 in the 4th concession. Col. William B. Hilton drew
the east half of Lot 12 and all of 13 and 14 in the 4th of Woodhouse for
his services in the Revolutionary War. After his death his heirs at law,
of Kinderhook, N.Y., sold all of the above lands to Water Whiting for
four shillings of Halifax currency, or about $1.00. This would be at the
rate of two mills per acre.
Sarah Matthews drew
200 acres of U.E.L. land in Malahide, in Elgin. She became the wife of
Captain John Butler, and Waters Whiting traded Lot 14 in the 4th concession
Woodhouse for Mrs. Butler's Malahide property.
The first John
Butler was himself a Loyalist, and left a 200-acre farm on Staten Island
(think of its value today). He settled first in New Brunswick, and then
came to the Long Point country, settling in the gore of Woodhouse, on
what is now the property of the sons of Mr. Hiram Bowlby. In 1836
Captain John Butler, with his wife and father and five sons, moved to
Lot 14. There was a daughter, Catherine, but I think she had married
Joseph Marr before the family moved down to what was called "The
Beach [sic] Woods."
John Butler,
youngest of the five sons of Captain John, married Elizabeth, daughter
of Adam Collver, of Woodhouse gore. He stayed on the homestead with his
father, and late became sole owner. Of their union a son and daughter
were born, John Hamilton and Mary Elizabeth. Hamilton succeeded to the
property and in the year 1872 married a Miss Almas of Kelvin. Of this
marriage there are four sons and two daughters, all married by the
youngest boy. At the family reunion held April 3rd, they were all home
with their children and one grandchild, the infant in the above picture,
the great-grandson of the widow of John Butler III.
When
they placed this little child in the chair of the original Butler I was
able to say I had seen seven generations of the family sit in it. That's
an event that comes to few.
At
the reunion the only persons present besides members of the family were
myself and Mr. Waddell, who was the official photographer of the occasion.
In
the first group taken there were myself, the great-great-grandmother and
the great-great grandchild; then came the group reproduced above, in
which five generations are included; lastly, the house itself, built
over seventy years ago by my father, and still in excellent
preservation.
When
they first went to the Beech Woods the Butlers lived in the log house of
Waters Whiting and where, as long as they continued to occupy it, the
latch-string was ever out. When building the new house, my father left
in the living room a recess between the two doors, in which was placed
one of Riley Whiting's tall grandfather clocks. The inscription on it
tells that it was made by Riley Whiting, in Winchester, Connecticut, and
that it was cased and sold by Wm. A. Whiting & Co., of Buffalo.
These two Whitings were of the same family and connections of the
early Woodhouse settler. The case of the clock stands in the recess
prepared for it, and has never been moved in seventy long years.
Called
upon by the host to say a few words, I had to plead inability to make a
speech. But I told Mr. Butler that besides being a merchant-captain his
grandfather was a calker and that he helped to calk the
"Dover," the first steamboat built at that Port.
Mr.
Butler has the musket his great-grandfather carried through the
Revolutionary War.
The
chair before alluded to was built by David Marr at the hollow for the
first John Butler, then an old man, and presented to him. It was made
from a plank taken from a tree cut down on the Butler farm.
In
concluding my remarks I alluded to the long existing friendly relations
of the two families, and expressed the hope that seven generations more
might come to carry them on.
