Jerry and Linda Butler

JAMES BUTLER served in the Military during the Revolutionary War as a resident of Mecklenburg County, Virginia. He moved to Wilkes (now Elbert) County, Georgia in a year or two after the war and applied for a Revolutionary War pension in Elbert County, Georgia, 21 Jan 1833. His pension was transferred to Alabama from the Georgia Agency. James certified 11 September 1841 that he had resided in Shelby County, Alabama since the last part of 1836.

His military service as follows

1. Drafted in the year 1778, for 2 months duty with Captain James Anderson Company, of Col John Burton's regiment.
2. Drafted in the year 1780, for 18 months duty with the companies of Captain Richard Swepson(?) and Captain Scott, of Colonial William Daris's Regiment. He was in engagement at "Woods Point" on the James River.
3. Drafted in the year 1781, for 2 months duty.

According to Howard Butler: the genealogists he conferred with there are more children than listed; however, their names have not been found.

The Heritage of Shelby County - In the 1785 Early Tax Digest of Wilkes County, Georgia, James received bounty land for his service in the War. He removed to Georgia right after 1790 to life on his land, which by then was located in Elbert County, formed from Wilkes County.

James was a resident of Elbert County for 46 years. He was a member first of Bethel "E" Baptist Church, and later in Elbert County of Falling Creek Baptist located on old Post Road, Elberton, Elbert County.

In 1833 James applied for and received a pension, the benefit of the Act of Congress passed June 6, 1832.

In 1836, James along with neighbors and relatives, moved to Shelby County Alabama in a wagon train headed by Jordan Jones. Jordan had been a neighbor of James in Elbert County for 30 years, and helped James join his family in Alabama. On June 5, 1837 James applied to have his pension changed to his new residence in Alabama. He gave the following reasons for removing "from the State of Georgia - "because I have ten children who reside in Shelby County Alabama and I am desirous to spend the short residue of my life with them. This and this alone was the only cause which induced me to remove."

A grand daughter of James married a son of Jordan Jones. James died after June 1, 1840, and was buried in what later became the Jones-Bailey Cemetery on land belonging to Jordan. James was possibly the first person to have been buried there. A collection of stones in a built up rectangle with sloping sides and flattened top was placed over his grave site. Such mounds of stones were also used back in Georgia to marker earlier Butler graves. The cemetery is listed on the State Historical Registry.

James Butler was twice married and was the father of 21 children. On October 16, 1983, a monument was dedicated and placed by the Shelby Historical Society.