Location: NC 2458 (Swepsonville-Saxapahaw Road) at SR 2156 (Bason Road) in Swepsonville
County: Alamance
Original Date Cast: 2011
Likely born in Virginia in the 1730s, John Butler settled, along with his brother William, in the Hawfields community of Orange County in the early 1760s. He was elected county sheriff in 1770, a dangerous position to have held in the center of the Regulator movement. Butler’s own brother was a Regulator leader; however, that apparently did not stop the Regulators from obstructing him from carrying out his duties, as he later testified. He does not appear to have been present at the Battle of Alamance, and afterwards he sought a pardon for his brother.
When the Revolution began, Butler was appointed to the Hillsborough committee of safety, and later commanded the Orange County militia at Moores Creek Bridge in 1776. He served as a delegate to the fourth and fifth Provincial Congresses, and in May 1777 was appointed commander of the Hillsborough District militia.
In 1776, the Whig government divided the state into six military districts. Butler’s command put him in charge of militia regiments from Caswell, Chatham, Granville, Orange, Randolph, and Wake Counties. The commanders of the other five militia districts were Francis Locke, Griffith Rutherford, John Ashe, Benjamin Cleveland, and Isaac Gregory.
Butler held his command for the next seven years, perhaps the most active district commander in North Carolina. Nevertheless, his military career was not a bright one. In 1779 he commanded a brigade at the Battle of Stono Ferry. The following year he led his brigade in the disastrous American defeat at Camden, and in the spring of 1781, he commanded half of the North Carolina militia at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse. In each engagement Butler acted quite courageously, however he proved to be no great tactician. One soldier who served under him described him derisively as just “an old man in a hunting shirt.”
During the “Tory War” in the early fall of 1781, Butler took an active part in trying to capture David Fanning. On September 13, 1781, Butler attacked Fanning’s forces at Lindley’s Mill in an attempt to rescue Governor Thomas Burke and other political prisoners, who had been captured the previous day at Hillsborough.
After four hours of heavy fighting, Butler’s outnumbered forces retreated, letting Fanning escape to Wilmington with his prisoners. Butler resigned his commission in 1784, and although elected to the House of Commons in 1786, died before the session opened. His home at “Mount Pleasant” is now the site of a golf course.
References:
William S. Powell, ed., Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, I, 290-291—sketch by Lindley Butler
Lawrence E. Babits and Joshua B. Howard, Long, Obstinate, and Bloody: Battle of Guilford Courthouse (2009)
Carole Troxler and William Vincent, Shuttle & Plow: A History of Alamance County, North Carolina (1999)