Early Life
Born in St. Bridget's Parish, Dublin, Ireland, Richard Butler was the oldest son of Thomas and Eleanor (Parker) Butler. Thomas Butler was an Irish aristocrat who served in the British army. In 1748 he opened a gun shop in Dublin, but that same year the family moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where Thomas learned to make the Pennsylvania long rifles used in the French and Indian War.
By 1760, the family had moved to the frontier at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where Thomas and his sons manufactured long rifles and became friends with Daniel Morgan. The Butler gun shop still stands in Carlisle.
By the 1770s, Richard Butler and his brother William were important traders at Fort Pitt in Pennsylvania and in Ohio. A street in Pittsburgh, Butler Street, is named for them.
Read more about this topic: Richard Butler (general)
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early and/or life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“He had long before indulged most unfavourable sentiments of our fellow-subjects in America. For, as early as 1769,... he had said of them, “Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for any thing we allow them short of hanging.””
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“The hardest part about being a kid is knowing you have got your whole life ahead of you.”
—Jane Wagner (b. 1935)