PREPARED BY PROFESSOR JAMES DAVIE BUTLER OF NORWICH, VT.

The following details are published not as being complete, but with the hope that the publication of them may be as a magnet attracting to itself, and thus supplying the wanting links which might otherwise perish from the chain of a family history. Any information, however slight, respecting any of the lines, whether direct or collateral, hereby brought to light, will be welcomed by the author of this article, or the editor of this journal.

We are still in the dark as to the family history of not a few among the first fathers of New England. Much of this darkness might be dispelled were all the written memorials still extant sought out, compared, and committed to the keeping of the art preservative of all arts. Winthrop in his Journal speaks of a letter from the Yarmouth pilgrims to their brethren, with their names, as printed at London in 1630. The instructions to Endecott, the first Governor of Massachusetts Bay, were "Keep a daily register in each family of what is done by all and every person in the family."

In Young's Chronicles of Plymouth, (p. 36) and of Massachusetts Bay, (p. 157), lists of names of emigrants are referred to, but the lists themselves are not given.

Notwithstanding several good works upon the Huguenots have recently appeared, much genealogical labor remains to be performed in tracing the lineage of particular families to France, and investigating their condition there before their emigration. I have often sought, though without success, for the records of the Old French Church in Boston, which stood on the site of the Universalist Church in School street.

NOTES.

1. Neither the family name of Stephen Butler's wife nor any other particulars respecting him have been ascertained, except the record of the births of his children, which is extracted from the city registers of Boston, formerly kept in the Old State House. As he became a father in Boston within little more than twenty years after its first settlement, it may be presumed that he was an emigrant from Europe.

2. Benjamin Butler. The different dates in this and similar cases denote the births of different children bearing the same name; the former in all probability died before the birth of the latter.

3. James Butler probably died before 1692, if the Grace Butler, married to Andrew Rankin, April 15th, of that year, by Simon Bradstreet, was his widow.

4. Information as to the kindred of Abigail Eustice may doubtless be found in the public records of Boston.

5. James Butler was a proprietor in a rope-walk at West Boston; was married April 6, 1710, by Rev. E. Pemberton of the Old South. He was probably admitted to the First Church Jan. 24, 1703-4. A folio Bible with Clarke's annotations, now in my possession, as an heirloom from my father and grandfather, bears the name of this James Butler, my grandfather's grandfather, and the date 1713, doubtless written by his own hand.

6. Grace Butler was married Dec. 26, 1706, to Thomas Jackson, by Benjamin Wadsworth, minister of the first church. She had several children, Grace, Thomas, and Elisabeth, and died March 15, 1759.

7. Eliza Butler was admitted to the first church Nov. 25, 1706, and was married to Capt. Ephraim Savage, Jan. 8, 1712. Nothing further is known of her.

8. James Butler was by trade a goldsmith. About 1750 he removed to Halifax, Nova Scotia, but proving unfortunate in his enterprise, soon returned to Boston. He afterwards lived awhile in Sutton, Ms., but died in Boston, in 1776, aged 63.

9. Although I have abstained from full details of collateral lines, I am constrained to give them respecting Elisabeth Davie, since her line of ancestry is so long.

(a) The lineage of this nobleman, his heraldic emblazonings and the like, may be found in Burke's Peerage of England; "vix ea nostra voco."

(b) Humphrey Davie was a captain in the London trade. Hence his daughter had many fine dresses. One of these now belongs to her granddaughter, Mrs. Sarah Kingsbury of Oxford, Ms.

It is of brocade, with many-colored figures embroidered upon a ground of green. It has two skirts, each of seven breadths, a long bodice to be worn with a satin stomacher, sleeves short at the elbows, with flowing ruffles. A silver tabby christening, or to use a better expression, baptismal, blanket, now in my possession, is said to have been made of another of my great-grandmother's dresses. There is a family tradition that these dresses were pawned by her husband after her death, and redeemed by her son.

(c) Hannah Gedney's lineage so far as I can trace it is as follows;

10. James Butler was brought up to the trade of a hatter; was married May 10, 1763, by Rev. Andrew Eliot of New North Church; in Aug., 1774, fled with his wife and six children under ten years of age, to Georgetown, Me., a four days' voyage. He was driven to this flight by the Boston port-bill, which brought all business to a stand. After remaining four years in Maine, he returned to Boston, and soon removed to Oxford, Ms.; where he resided till his death, Dec. 20, 1827, aged 88.

11. Mary Sigourney was great-granddaughter of a Sigourney, who, being a Huguenot, fled from Rochelle in France, with his wife and four small children, in 1685. This first emigrant was among the first settlers in Oxford, Ms., and some of his children married there. Through fear of Indians, he removed to Boston. I have made out an extensive table of his posterity, but on account of its length, must refrain from inserting it here, except so far as relates to my own family. Among the descendants of this Huguenot exile, are the Brimmers, the Inches, and the Dexters, of Boston; the Commander of the Schooner Asp, killed by the British in the Potomac, in 1813; and the husband of our most popular poetess.

12. James Davie Butler was born in Boston, Oct. 5, 1765. In 1786, left a school he was teaching in Oxford, to be a volunteer against Shays. Emigrated to Rutland, Vt., in Aug., 1787; was at first a hatter; in 1792, became a merchant, and continued in trade fifty years, till his death, June 3, 1842.

He was married, Aug. 22, 1802, to the widow Rachel Maynard, and March 15, 1827, to Lois Harris. He represented the town of Rutland in the Vermont Legislature, for the years 1812 and 1813. In the year 1814, he was a member of the State Council.

His first wife was daughter of Capt. Israel Harris of Williamstown, Ms., who went with Ethan Allen's Green Mountain Boys to take Ticonderoga, and was an officer in the battle of Bennington.

13. This infant of days may be noticeable as being the seventh of those who, in one unbroken line during one hundred and eighty-one years, have born the name of James.