JOHN S. BUTLER, clerk and master of the chancery court of Bedford County, was born in Rutherford County, Tenn., March 13, 1832, being one of nine children raised by William S. and Nancy E. (Campbell) BUTLER. The father was a native of North Carolina and came to Shelbyville in 1816, and till 1830 pursued the carpenter’s trade. In 1819 he removed to Rutherford County, where he married the mother, and followed farming after 1830. He died in 1873; the mother is still living.
The subject of this sketch engaged at the age of eighteen on the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad, occupying various positions, among which were, conductor, telegraph operator, ticket and express agent, remaining in that employ for eleven years. He enlisted in Maney’s First Tennessee Regiment, Confederate States Army, and was captain on the first and second organization of Company F. He was appointed military superintendent of telegraph lines in 1863, of Bragg’s division, and served in that capacity throughout the remainder of the war. After the war he lived one year in Nashville as agent of the Nashville & Northwestern Railroad. In 1866 he came to Shelbyville and engaged at farming and saw-milling and still continues farming. He was elected magistrate of the Twenty-first District about 1876, and September 5, 1883 was appointed to his present office. Politically he is a Democrat. In 1866 he was married to Mary A. SIMS, a native of this county. Four children have been born to this union, viz.: Nancy J., Laura, Mary and John S.
Transcribed by Kathryn Hopkins
Source: Goodspeed Publishing Co. History of Tennessee from the Earliest Time to the Present: Together with an Historical and a Biographical Sketch of Maury, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson, Bedford & Marshall Counties, Besides a Valuable Fund of Notes, Reminescences [Sic], Observations, Etc., Etc. Easley, S.C.: Southern Historical Press, 1988.