William Butler's first wife, Martha Farley, and the mother of his children was born 16 December 1765 in Amelia County, Virginia. She died in October of 1823 in Henry County, Kentucky. William's second wife was Frances Ellington, the widow of Forest Farley, William's first wife's brother. Forest and Martha's brother, Daniel Farley, had served with William during the Revolutionary War.
From: Mark C. Butler, Jr. The Butler and Farley Families of Trimble County, Kentucky
"William Butler was born 11 November 1757/58 in Prince George County, Virginia. While he was quite young the family moved to Amelia County, Virginia. Less than a year after the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, William was drafted into the Army and served a three month hitch with a unit of the Virginia Line assigned to guard the coast at Hampton, Virginia. Three years later he served a similar tour of duty in the same place. There is no record of his participation in any battles.
"Serving with William was Daniel Farley and this association had far-reaching consequences, for, on 9 July 1782, William married Martha Farley, Daniel's sister. Giving consent for Martha was Peter Ellington, whose relationship to Martha and to Frances Ellington is unknown, but he may have been Martha's grandfather and Frances Ellington's uncle. Frances Ellington married Forest Farley, brother of Martha and Daniel, on 16 August 1792.
"In 1787 William, Martha, and their infant son, John Ferguson Butler, born 2 September 1785, left Amelia County, probably in company with the Daniel Farley family and others, to seek their fortune in the frontier county of Jefferson in Kentucky. Their second son, Joseph Farley Butler, was born 13 July 1787, probably after they reached their destination which, most likely, was Shelbyville, which in 1792 became the seat of the newly formed county of Shelby in the new State of Kentucky.
"William Butler appears on the 1792-1795 Tax List as the owner of 833 acres in Shelby County. His name and that of Daniel Farley appear on the records as appraisers of the estate of John Felty, the deceased mayor of Shelbyville, in 1795. John Felty had the misfortune to engage in a fight in which he hurled a rock and his opponent threw a knife at the same instant, both with fatal result. William was also recorded as the witness to twenty-one marriages in Shelbyville from 1792 to 1797.
"From the above it seems likely that William and his family, which now included Sophia Butler, born 22 October 1789, and Amelia Butler, born 24 August 1796, lived in or near Shelbyville from 1787 until about 1798 or 1799. Beginning in 1800 William Butler's name appears on a number of real estate transactions in Henry County (formed in 1798 from a part of Shelby County), including the purchase and sale of several lots in New Castle, the county seat. In 1804 he was one of the trustees of the town of New Castle and on 1 February 1809 he was one of ten people who formed the New Castle Library Company to establish a library in the twon. He also had the unusual experience related by Maude J. Drane in her History of Henry County, Kentucky as follows:
'In those good old times, if a man owed a debt and was unwilling or unable to pay, his creditor obtained a judgment, on which an execution was issued commanding the sheriff to take the body of the defendant and him safely keep until the pounds, shillings, and pence were discharged; and the sheriff, in order to keep him safe, placed him in jail.'
"The return on one of these executions, which is recorded in the first order book, is curious enough to be copied here. One Wm. Butler was sued, and an execution was issued for him; the sheriff, a man named White, made this return:
'Executed by arresting Wm. Butler, and taking him to the place where the jail is to be built; commanded him there to stay, and he escaped.'
"In less than five years [between 1810 and 1814] William and Martha had lost three of their four children and the fourth had married. [John Ferguson Butler had died in July of 1810 under circumsatnces not now known - on the Natchez T. Sophia Butler White died in 1814 when her daughter Harriet was only two years old. Joseph Farley Butler died fighting the British at Detroit in 1814. In May of 1814, Amelia married William Farley, son of Daniel Farley and she disappears after the 1830 Census in Shelby County, Kentucky.] However they were not left alone. The 1820 census record indicates that Nancy Walden Butler, Joseph's widow, and her two children, as well as Harriet White, Sophia's daughter, were living with them. But more drastic change was in store for William and this began with the arrival of another Farley family in Kentucky...