{"id":1846,"date":"2017-04-20T17:33:36","date_gmt":"2017-04-20T17:33:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlisleparks\/?p=1846"},"modified":"2017-04-25T05:19:16","modified_gmt":"2017-04-25T05:19:16","slug":"butcher-family-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlisleparks\/butcher-family-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Butcher Family History"},"content":{"rendered":"

Butcher Tot Lot Home<\/a> \u00a0| \u00a0Park History<\/a> | Butcher Family History<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0| Tot Lot Improvement Project<\/a>\u00a0| Photo Gallery<\/a> | African Americans in Carlisle<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>

1910 Carlisle Census (Courtesy of Ancestry.com)<\/p><\/div>\n

John Butcher was born a slave in Virginia in 1832. His wife, Charlotte, was also born in Virginia, eleven years after her husband and the couple married in 1862. In the same year their first son, William, was born. Not much is known about Butcher\u2019s life as a slave however he had a curious encounter reported on by the Evening Sentinel<\/em> in Carlisle in May of 1890. The newspaper wrote \u201cA slave owner and his former slave once owned by him met on a Carlisle Street on Wednesday afternoon after twenty-five years separation and enjoyed the unexpected meeting very much. The colored man was John Butcher.\u201d[1]<\/a> The man at the meeting and Butcher\u2019s former owner was Joseph Barton, who owned both John and Charlotte in Frederick County, Virginia.<\/p>\n

It is still unknown when the Butchers came to Carlisle but the time frame is \u201csometime between the Emancipation and the Battle of Gettysburg\u201d, a time period where many African Americans moved into \u201cthe lower Cumberland Valley.\u201d[2]<\/a> When they first arrived in Carlisle the Butchers \u201clived for some time in the countryside before moving their family into town.\u201d[3]<\/a> \u00a0In town Butcher became \u201cknown for this \u2018thrift and industry,\u2019 started supporting his family by selling large quantities of neat\u2019s foot oil, an extract made from the shin bones of cattle.\u201d[4]<\/a> Along with his oil business Butcher was a laborer for George Hench for twenty-five years. Both of these work opportunities allowed for Butcher to begin collecting a number of properties.<\/p>\n

The Butchers lived in \u201cCarlisle\u2019s third ward, the town\u2019s \u2018industrial center\u2019 and home to a majority of Carlisle\u2019s African American citizens.\u201d[5]<\/a> After five years in Carlisle, in 1868, Butcher purchased his first of multiple properties, a space on Walnut Street. Nine years later \u201cMary Hench, George Hench\u2019s executrix, \u2018granted and conveyed\u2019 to John Butcher a lot on Chestnut Alley.\u201d[6]<\/a> This lot would go on to become the Butcher Tot Lot. In 1890 \u201cThe Sentinel reported \u2018John Butcher is building 2 new brick houses on his property on Chapel Alley.\u201d The properties on Chestnut Alley and Chapel Alley were used to rent to tenants while the Walnut Street property was the Butcher family home. The Butchers lived in that house for forty-nine years and it was described in 1910 as \u201cbeing situated upon one of the nicest residence streets in town and is a model of comfort to his declining years.\u201d [7]<\/a><\/p>\n

Butcher passed away on March 13, 1919 and he was survived by \u201csix sons and three daughters: William (1862); Mary (1864); John G (1866); Agnes (1868), Charles (1871); Albert (1877); Hattie (1878); Frank (1881); Alice (1884); George (1886); Joseph (1180).\u201d[8]<\/a> A well known resident in Carlisle \u201cButcher\u2019s obituary described him as \u2018a kind and devoted husband and father, a good neighbor, and an example that men of both races could do well to emulate.\u201d[9]<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>

1920 Carlisle Census (Courtesy of Ancestry.com)<\/p><\/div>\n

[1]<\/a> \u201cJohn J. and Charlotte Roy Butcher,\u201d Gardner Digital Library, last modified 2014, http:\/\/gardnerlibrary.org\/encylopedia\/john-j-and-charlotte-roy-butcher<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> \u201cJohn J. and Charlotte Roy Butcher.\u201d<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> \u201cJohn J. and Charlotte Roy Butcher.\u201d<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> John J. and Charlotte Roy Butcher.\u201d<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> John J. and Charlotte Roy Butcher.\u201d<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> John J. and Charlotte Roy Butcher.\u201d<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> John J. and Charlotte Roy Butcher.\u201d<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> John J. and Charlotte Roy Butcher.\u201d<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> John J. and Charlotte Roy Butcher.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information on the Butcher Family,\u00a0click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Butcher Tot Lot Home \u00a0| \u00a0Park History | Butcher Family History\u00a0\u00a0| Tot Lot Improvement Project\u00a0| Photo Gallery | African Americans in Carlisle John Butcher was born a slave in Virginia in 1832. His wife, Charlotte, was also born in Virginia, eleven years after her husband and the couple married in 1862. In the same year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1744,"featured_media":2164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[127007],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-butcher-tot-lot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlisleparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlisleparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlisleparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlisleparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1744"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlisleparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlisleparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlisleparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlisleparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlisleparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/carlisleparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}