Sonoma County Biography
Charles Henry Butler
Though by trade a blacksmith, a calling which he has followed throughout the greater part of his life, Mr. Butler is no less gifted as an agriculturist, as he has demonstrated during the last six years that he has been superintendent of an orchard of one hundred and fifty acres in Sonoma county, near Healdsburg. Like many who have contributed to the citizenship of California, Mr. Butler is a native of one of the states to the east, his birth occurring in Fond du Lac, Wis., November 24, 1864. The primary education gleaned in the schools of Fond du Lac was enlarged upon in Healdsburg, Cal., whither Mr. Butler came with his parents in 1874, and for a number of years he carried on his studies in the schools of this place.
With the close of his school training Mr. Butler prepared himself for a business in life by apprenticing himself to learn the blacksmith's trade, and his training completed, opened a shop and gathered about him a good trade, which he continued to follow for a number of years, or until 1904, when he gave it up to take charge of the property of which he is now the superintendent. This is a large ranch of one hundred and fifty acres, all in fruit, and that he is making a success of his latter-day calling, but a glance at the fine appearance of the ranch will prove beyond a doubt.
In 1887 a marriage ceremony in Healdsburg united the lives of Charles H. Butler and Miss Mary E. Miller, the latter a native of the state and the daughter of James and Martha (Walters) Miller, the latter of whom is still living at the age of seventy-eight years. Six children were born to Mr. And Mrs. Butler, but of the number only four are living. The eldest of these Aubrey C., a native daughter of Healdsburg, is now attending Berkeley University; Grace V. is a student in the San Francisco Normal; Vernon M. assists his father in the management of the ranch, and Charles W. is also at home with his parents.
Politically Mr. Butler is a Republican, stanch and true in his support of that party's candidates, and an active worker in the ranks of his party, but this activity has never been tainted with self-seeking, for he has never held nor had any ambition to hold public office. Fraternally he is identified with the Knights of Pythias of Healdsburg, the Foresters of America, and also with the Eagles.
On the paternal side Mr. Butler is a descendant of a long line of New England ancestors, his father, James H. Butler, being a native of Vermont, and he passed away in Healdsburg, Cal., in 1896. The wife and mother, Sarah M. Billings in maidenhood, was born in Indiana, July 18, 1831, and died March 1, 1911, at the home of Mr. Butler, at the age of seventy-nine years.
History of Sonoma County, California
History by Tom Gregory : Historic Record Company, 1891
Los Angeles, Ca. 1911
Transcribed by Roberta Hester Leatherwood
April 2008
Pages 800-803
Sonoma County Biographies ~ Archive Biography Index ~ Archive Index
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