The activities of Butler as pastor, teacher, lecturer, world traveler, scholar, antiquarian, and genealogist covered an unusually wide field of experience. Born in Vermont and educated in New England, he spent the first years of his life out of college as a Congregational minister. He retired from the pulpit over half a century before his death, but frequently thereafter served as supply pastor and as chaplain of university commencements. In 1858 he came to Madison as a member of the university faculty, but retired from teaching in 1867. He continued to reside in Madison, except for his frequent and often protracted trips abroad and to other parts of the United States until the end in 1905.
