Family:Benjamin Butterworth and Rachel Moorman (2)

From "Memoirs of the Miami Valley, Vol 2", pages 324-6

No family in the annals of Warren county has been more prominent than the Butterworths, the ancestor of whom, Benjamin Butterworth, came from Virginia to the Little Miami Valley in the year of 1812. Personally, he is described as the most remarkable of all the early settlers, standing six feet and six inches high and weighing over 300 pounds. The land to which he came with his family was located in Warren county, and his deed called for 1,000 acres, which lay along the Little Miami from Fosters to within a short distance of Loveland, and as the price was $3 per acre, this notable Quaker settler was evidently a man of financial resources. His deed is an illustration of the imperfect surveys of that early period, for later measurement fount that 1,500 acres were contained in his large estate. This hardy pioneer had an open eye to the future of his descendants, for although the lack of proper machinery made the clearing of land a slow process, he purchased an additional 500 acres at the mouth of the Obannon, and also a tract in Wayne township, and thus was able to leave a large farm to each of the ten children who survived out of the thirteen born to him and his wife.

Mr. Butterworth first located on Caesars’ creek not far from Waynesville, but in the spring of the year 1816 removed to the place on his land now known as Butterworth’s station, where a large and comfortable log house preceded the erection of the big stone house of which the family took possession in the year 1820.

This stone house is a historic residence in the history of the Miami valley. With the sincere hospitality so characteristic of the Friends, persons of every station in life found a welcome at the table which was always loaded with the primitive and simple generosity of pioneer days. The house was a beacon to friends and acquaintances from old Virginia, who were seeking locations in the west; traveling preachers, no matter what their denominational cloth might be, were glad of a night’s rest under the hospitable Butterworth roof.

It is almost needless to say, that the Butterworths were bitterly antagonistic to slavery, and their home was an always open station on the underground railway, and many a serious conclave has been held by anti-slavery leaders in the old mansion when to do so, perchance, meant to invite mob persecution.

There were but few Friends in the southern part of Warren county at the time of the Butterworth settlement, and on first day and fifth day of every week, for many years, the few who were within reaching distance, would gather in the largest room of the old historic house and sit in silence, waiting for the influence of the Spirit to move them to utterance, the children and grandchildren of the pioneers generally making the major part of the congregation. When in the year 1827, a division occurred in the society, the Butterworths remained staunch to the Hicksite branch, and times without number, did the noted Quaker preacher and anti-slavery agitator receive a cordial welcome at the door of the stone residence.

The education of the pioneer Butterworths was exceedingly limited, but many of their descendants were given intellectual advantages denied the older ones. William and Henry Butterworth, sons of the first settler were largely interested in the establishment of the academy at Maineville, a school which maintained its life and influence longer than any other academy in Warren county; William seems to have been given wider educational advantages than any of the rest of his brothers and sisters, and for many years was a successful teacher in the public schools.

To a later generation the name of the old pioneer lived again in a grandson, who was a son of William Butterworth. Well educated, gifted with rare forensic power, a fine lawyer, for many years Benjamin Butterworth, the grandson, represented his district in the national congress, where his quickness of thought in debate brought him into national prominence, and no stump-speaker in a political campaign was ever more popular than Benjamin Butterworth; but in the prime of life, his thread of destiny was snapped, and a career that might, perchance, have brought him still higher political distinction was ended. His body is interred in the pretty little cemetery at Maineville.

The lasting resting place of the pioneer, Benjamin Butterworth and his wife, Rachel Moorman Butterworth, is on the top of a hill that overlooks the stone house, which today is of more historic interest than any other ancient home in the Little Miami valley. By the side of these honored early settlers, sleep many of their descendants, their graves, as is the custom of the Friends, unmarked, only by rough stones, on which there are no inscriptions.

The last son of the pioneers to live in the old stone house was Henry Butterworth, and in the year 1880 he and his wife celebrated their golden wedding; thirteen years later they were separated by death, in the year 1893, but Mrs. Butterworth, who before her marriage was Miss Nancy Wales, a sister of the Hon. Thomas M. Wales of Harveysburg, lived to reach her hundredth birthday.

The little station that takes its name from the proximity of the stone house, is located on the Little Miami branch of the Pennsylvania railroad, about twenty-six miles from Cincinnati, between Loveland and Fosters.