General Benjamin Butler portraitA. J. Wiggin, Portrait of Benjamin Butler, 1869
Model of the yacht AmericaErik A. R. Ronnberg, model of the yacht America, 2003
In all the annals of granite quarrying history, there has never been a figure quite like General Benjamin Butler.
Civil War and Political Career
During the Civil War, Butler was the administrator of Union-held New Orleans and earned the animosity of the people he governed. They referred to him as “Butler the Beast” and painted his picture on the bottom of their chamber pots.
His actions after the War created a different picture. He championed the cause of the immigrant Irish, based his Congressional campaign on promoting civil rights, dedicated himself to freeing the slaves and fought the Ku Klux Klan. He turned down Abraham Lincoln’s request that he run as his vice president.
President Ulysses S. Grant summed up the divergence between Butler’s achievements and his public image:
Butler is a great man it is fashionable to abuse, but he is a man who has done the country great service, and who is worthy of its gratitude. (Quoted in Robert Holzman’s Stormy Ben Butler, 1954.)
Similarly, Richard West quotes English reformer Goldwin Smith in his 1965 book Lincoln’s Scapegoat General. The subject was Butler’s role in advancing the rights of freed slaves:
"This, to give the Beast, as well as the devil, his due, is the work of General Butler. That man’s indomitable energy and iron will (qualities written more plainly than on any face I ever beheld, unless it be the portraits of Cromwell) have crushed the obstacles that stood in the way of the great moral and social revolution. "
Butler’s “face” - never considered his greatest asset - is the subject of an 1869 portrait by A. J. Wiggin which is part of the Museum’s Fine Arts Collection.
Granite Quarrying
General Benjamin Butler spent summers after the war at Bayview, his 47-acre estate on Ipswich Bay, near the Annisquam section of Gloucester. He eventually used his summer home as the base for his political career, gaining a seat in Congress from the Essex district in 1866 which he held for 10 years. He was elected governor of Massachusetts in 1888.
Gloucester became the focus of Butler’s business activities as well. He noticed an outcropping of granite on his beach one summer and formed the Cape Ann Granite Company shortly thereafter. He used Cape Ann granite to build his home in Washington, D.C. near the Capitol.
The Yacht America
For the last 20 years of his life, Butler was the proud owner of the yacht America. In 1851, America became the first winner of the cup subsequently named for her, yachting’s most prestigious racing trophy. Butler bought the America in 1873 and sailed her out of Gloucester harbor until his death in 1893. His family and heirs continued racing and cruising in America until 1903.
In 1999, Butler’s descendants commissioned a model of America which is now part of the Museum’s Fisheries and Maritime Collection. It was built by maritime historian and well known model maker Erik Ronnberg, Jr. The scale of the model is 3/8 inches = 1 foot, making it nearly five feet in overall length. All the sails are set, including a very large spinnaker and a fisherman’s staysail.