Early Memories of Saugatuck, Michigan : 1830-1930
Author: Heath, May Francis
Publisher: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company; Grand Rapids, Mich: 1930

WILLIAM GAY BUTLER

William G. Butler was a true pioneer as Webster puts it—"One who goes before, as into the wilderness preparing the way for others to follow," and he was the first white man and his wife, Emily Butler, the first white woman to brave the wilderness in what is now beautiful Saugatuck.

William Gay Butler was born Sept. 28, 1799, in Hartford, Conn. His father was Jonathan Butler and there were seven children, and William G. was the third born.

His father and sister, Eliza, came to see them in the thirties and in so many places were no roads at all and such sparse settlements and they had to sleep in such terrible places, that when they were only two days' journey from their destination they almost turned around, traveling was so hazardous.

The great-grand niece of W. G.'s wrote me recently giving all the information written about him. His first wife was Emily Loomis (Levi Loomis' sister), they had several children, two born here in the wilderness before 1834, with not another white woman in the section—-Emily died in 1835 and none of her children lived long—Lucy Butler's was the first birth and the first death in Saugatuck.

Mr. Butler's second wife's name was Eliza and she was the mother of James Gay Butler, Mr. Butler's only son to attain manhood. After his father's death in 1857, he, with the help of Michael Spencer entered school at Ann Arbor. He was a colonel in the Civil War and after the war he located at St. Louis, Mo., engaging in the tobacco manufacturing business. He was a great philanthropist, organizing what, was known as the "Poor Man's Bank" and contributed largely to "Lindenwood College" endowing it with $250,000, and many other gifts to St. Louis were his. Colonel Butler died in 1916, his wife in 1918, and as they had no children, the direct line of William G. and Emily Butler, first pioneers in Saugatuck, is closed.