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Transcribed from "An Illustrated History of The Big Bend Country, embracing Lincoln, Douglas, Adams and Franklin counties, State of Washington",  published by Western Historical Publishing Co., 1904.


     GEORGE E. BUTLER is a farmer and stock raiser residing three miles northeast from Griffith and ten miles north from Ritzville, and his farm lies in Lincoln county near the county boundary line.
     Mr. Butler was born on August 29, 1836, in Jefferson county, Missouri, the son of Joel and Margaret (Morrison) Butler, natives of Jefferson and Crawford counties, Missouri, respectively.  The father was a veteran of the Black Hawk war and a pioneer of California of 1849.  He died in that state during the year of his advent there.  The subject's grandfather, Edward Butler, was of Irish descent, born in Kentucky, came to Jefferson county, Missouri, when a boy and purchased a Spanish land grant where now stands the city of De Soto, where he lived the remainder of his life.  The mother of George E. Butler died in her native state.
     The brothers and sisters of Mr. Butler are: William C., Mrs. Elizabeth Pratt, living, and John M., Sarah A., Mrs. Ella Wilkinson and Mrs. Josephine Butt, deceased.
     The school education of our subject was limited to a few months spent in a primitive log school house.  He crossed the plains in the spring of 1853 with a train of seventeen immigrant wagons drawn by oxen.  The party arrived at Marysville, California, after a long and perilous journey, having had a serious fight with the Indians on the Truckee river in which two of the immigrants were killed.  In California Mr. Butler engaged in mining, which business he followed until enlisting in the army in 1855 during the conflict with the Indians known as the Rogue River war.  His elder brother was also a soldier during this war.  On November 3, 1861, at Jacksonville, Oregon, Mr. Butler enlisted in Company A, First Oregon Cavalry, and was made a sergeant of his company.  He did service in Eastern Oregon and along the emigrant roads farther east against the Indians for three years, when he was given an honorable discharge from service having been engaged in many desperate skirmishes with the savages and on every occasion acquitting himself with credit both to himself and his company.  He is now receiving a pension for his services.  In 1863, during the month of April, he went to San Francisco by boat, and ten days later he started by ship for New York city, arriving at his destination twenty-three days later.  From New York he went to his old home and was there married, during April, 1867, to Meka Garrett, a native of Jefferson county, Missouri, and daughter of William and Eliza A. Garrett.  In the fall of 1886 Mr. Butler brought his family to the Big Bend and took a homestead near his present farm and engaged in the stock business.  He has lived on his present farm twelve years, and now owns eleven hundred and twenty acres of good land.  His farm is one of the best in the county.
     Mrs. Butler died on November 29, 1900, leaving a family of eleven children: Belle, wife of Charles Herschberger, Ritzville; Georgia, wife of William Johnson, Ritzville; Victor, married to Jessie Leonard, Farmington, Washington; Edward, married to Pearl Sage, Ritzville; Margaret, wife of Putnam Farrington, Farmington; Grace, married to Lewis Lacey, Chewelah, Washington; Gertrude, wife of Hacom Lemman, Ritzville; Estella, wife of John Lacey, Chewelah; Glene E., William R. and Mary Ellen.  Besides these Mr. Butler has lost four children, who died in infancy.
     Mr. Butler is a member of the G. A. R., at Ritzville, and with most of his children, belongs to the Christian church, to which church his wife also belonged when alive.
 


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