Steven Butler's Genealogy Website: Butler Beginnings, Part Two

The Butler Family: Beginnings
PART TWO

By Steven R. Butler

The only thing known with certainty about Alfred Butler's youth is that sometime before 1846, he left North Carolina, emigrating to Alabama. It may be that he journeyed there as a child, accompanying his parents and other family members. But it's just as possible he made the trip as a young adult. Regardless, such a move was not uncommon. "Between 1815 and 1835," wrote modern author Blackwell P. Robinson, "North Carolina was so undeveloped, backward and indifferent to its condition that it was often called the "Ireland of America" and the "Rip Van Winkle" state." As a result, he commented, "North Carolina dropped in population from fourth place among the states in 1790 to seventh place in 1840, though it had about the highest birth rate in the nation. Soil exhaustion, the lure of fertile and cheap lands in the west, the lack of internal improvements and educational facilities and unhappy conditions generally led many people to leave the state."

Their destination of choice, more often than not, was the former Mississippi Territory, which on March 3, 1817 was divided by the Federal government into two portions. The western half was admitted to the union as the State of Mississippi on December 10th that same year, while the eastern half was organized as the Territory of Alabama. Two years later, on December 14, 1819, Alabama too was admitted as a state. According to writer William A. Owens, the largest number of settlers came from southern Virginia and the Carolinas.

"They entered Alabama," Owens wrote, "by way of the Tennessee and Alabama rivers." Or they traveled by land, the poorest on foot, those better off by wagon train, taking "either the upper road or the Fall Line Road, both of which began in Virginia, crossed North and South Carolina and intersected at Montgomery, Alabama." There, said Owens, as "mighty streams of emigration" poured into the state, "spreading over the whole territory of Alabama, the axe resounded from side to side and from corner to corner. The stately and magnificent forest fell. Log cabins sprang, as if by magic, into sight. Never before or since, has a country been so rapidly peopled."

It's possible that Alfred Butler, with or without his family, might not have migrated directly to Alabama after leaving North Carolina. A number of early settlers moved west gradually, settling temporarily in South Carolina, Georgia, or Tennessee before taking up permanent residence in Alabama. Many families also moved around within the state, residing for short periods in one or more different counties before finding one which suited them for the long term. At any rate, only one other place outside the county and state of his birth has ever been found to have any connection with the early years of Alfred Butler's life. That place is Greene County, Alabama.

Established by an act of the Alabama legislature on December 13, 1819, Greene County was originally much larger than it is today. Formed out of land taken from Marengo and Tuscaloosa counties, Greene too was reduced in size when present-day Hale County, its eastern neighbor, was organized in 1867. Other counties with which it shares a boundary today are Pickens and Tuscaloosa to the north and to the west and south, Sumter and Marengo. In all, Greene County has an area of about 650 square miles.

Of all Alabama counties, Greene is probably the most oddly-shaped, the result of its natural boundaries - the Tombigbee River on the west, the Sipsey River on the north and to the east, the Black Warrior. At the county's southernmost point, the Black Warrior and Tombigbee converge. There, the town of Demopolis is situated. Eutaw, near the center, is the county seat. It was founded in 1838.

The land which makes up Greene County is generally level or gently rolling with the prairies and bottoms of the Tombigbee-Black Warrior fork being especially rich and fertile. During the Nineteenth century, corn and cotton were among the principal crops grown there, making Greene, as late as 1845, the foremost agricultural county in the state.

The county was named for General Nathaniel Greene, Washington's second-in-command during the American Revolution and the county seat, Eutaw, was named for the site of his greatest victory against the British - the 1781 Battle of Eutaw Springs, South Carolina.

At least two different Butler families settled in Greene County during the 1820's. But although no evidence has yet been found to connect Alfred Butler with certainty to either clan - there are clues favoring the possibility of one more than the other.

With roots in South Carolina, one of these families was headed by a man named David Butler. However, because all his children can be accounted for in various county records, it's unlikely Alfred Butler was his child or kinsman.

Instead, the likelihood is stronger that Alfred Butler was a member of the family whose patriarch was named Isaac Butler. A native of North Carolina, it's possible he could have been the same Isaac Butler who served with John Butler in the 10th North Carolina Regiment during the Revolutionary War. Nevertheless, when he died in Greene County sometime during 1827, Isaac named in his will three sons: John, Isaack, and Kennard - any one of which could have been Alfred Butler's father.

However, of the three, only one - Kennard Butler, is known to have resided in Greene County and early census records (which name only the head of the household) reveal he had two sons the same age as Alfred Butler and Levin Butler - another young man who resided in Greene County and is presumed to have been Alfred's younger brother. Unfortunately, Kennard Butler appears on no census records for Alabama or any other Southern states after 1830, leading to the conclusion that he died sometime before 1840. Equally unfortunate is the fact that he left no will on file in the Greene County courthouse nor was his estate probated. Thus the names of his heirs are unknown.

The 1840 Federal census for Greene County, Alabama lists only two heads of households bearing the surname Butler. One was David Butler. The other was a woman named Ann Butler - presumably Kennard Butler's widow. Census records reveal she had two sons and two daughters.

Ann Butler, it appears, was herself the daughter of Revolutionary War veteran Richard Johnson (named as a claimant in probate records concerning the estate of Isaac Butler) and his wife Sarah. The following evidence suggests her full name was Nancy Ann Butler: First, Sarah Johnson's will names a daughter, Ann Butler, as an heir while her husband included, among the heirs named in his will, a daughter, Nancy Butler. Second, in the 1840 Federal census for Greene County, Ann Butler was between 40 and 50 years of age. Ten years later, in the 1850 census, the first to ask for exact ages, she was 53. Finally, the 1860 Federal census lists no Ann Butler in Greene County, but it does name a Nancy A. Butler, age 65.

There is further evidence that Ann, or Nancy Ann Butler, was the daughter of Richard and Sarah Johnson: In his will dated September 29, 1835 (probated in Greene County on December 14, 1840), Richard Johnson also left property to two young women named Lovely Unity Butler and Jully M. Butler. On August 16, 1840, Lovely Butler (her name in Greene County records is given as "Lovely De Unity Butler") married Robert Johnson - presumably a son or grandson of Richard Johnson. Because Ann Butler was listed in the household of Robert and Lovely Johnson in the 1850 Federal census for Greene County, it can be presumed that Lovely was her daughter and Robert her son-in-law.

It follows then that Lovely Butler Johnson and Jully M. Butler may have been Alfred Butler's older sisters, that Robert Johnson may have been his brother-in-law, and that Richard and Sarah Johnson may have been his maternal grandparents. But, until some document is found naming him as such, this must remain conjecture.

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