Butler, John

BUTLER, JOHN. (1728–1796). Loyalist leader. New York. Born in New London, Connecticut, he moved with his parents in 1742 to the Mohawk Valley, where his father, Captain Walter Butler, commanded at Fort Hunter and at Oswego. John Butler served as a captain in Sir William Johnson's expedition against Crown Point in 1755, under Abercromby at Ticonderoga, and under Bradstreet in the expedition against Fort Frontenac. He was Johnson's second in command in the capture of Fort Niagara, where he led the Indian forces. After the war, Butler settled in the Mohawk Valley, where he owned more than twenty-five thousand acres, making him the largest landowner in the region after Sir Guy Johnson. In 1772 he was made lieutenant colonel of militia.

He sided with the British at the beginning of the Revolution and was forced to flee his home in the Mohawk Valley with his son, Walter, the rest of his family being taken hostage by the Patriots and held until an exchange in 1780. Dispatched by the British to Niagara in November 1775, Butler managed Indian affairs in Canada as the deputy of Guy Johnson. Initially, Butler followed Governor Guy Carleton's orders to keep the Indians neutral, but by 1777 the British government had switched to a more aggressive policy of recruiting Indian warriors. By that time, Butler had established a network of agents throughout western New York and the Ohio Valley. In August he and Joseph Brant led the Indian and Loyalist forces at the Battle of Oriskany. After the failure of St. Leger's expedition, Butler, now a major, organized a Corps of Rangers from among the Loyalist refugees that became known as Butler's Rangers. He led these and additional forces in the remarkable raid to the Wyoming Valley. The Patriots responded to this and other raids with Sullivan's expedition, and in the only pitched battle of this campaign, Butler was defeated at Newtown on 29 August 1779. Early the next year Haldimand promoted him to lieutenant colonel and Butler's forces continued their operations on the frontier, which achieved Butler's goal of drawing Continental forces away from the major theaters of operation.

The state of New York confiscated Butler's property by the Act of Attainder of 22 October 1779. At the same time, Butler established a settlement of Loyalists on the Niagara Peninsula to grow food for the garrison. When Butler's Rangers were disbanded in 1784, the British government gave him a pension and a five-hundred-acre land grant but refused to reimburse him for the loss of his thousands of acres in New York. Butler settled near Niagara and continued to serve as deputy superintendent of the Indian Department, also holding a number of local offices and commanding the area's militia. However, the enmity of Sir John Johnson prevented Butler from attaining office beyond his community. He died at Newark, Ontario, on 13 May 1796.

SEE ALSO Johnson, Guy; Newtown, New York; Sullivan's Expedition against the Iroquois; Wyoming Valley Massacre, Pennsylvania.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ranlet, Philip. The New York Loyalists. 2d ed., Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2002.

                              revised by Michael Bellesiles