Henry Rutherford Butler (1862 - 1931)

Born 11 Apr 1862 in Wilmington, New Hanover, North Carolina, USA

Husband of Selena May (Sloan) Butler — married 2 May 1893 in Bibb, Georgia, United States

Died 17 Dec 1931 at age 69 in Atlanta, Fulton County, Georgia, USA

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Biography

Henry Butler is Notable.

Henry Butler was a Freemason and a member of Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Georgia.

Dr. Henry Rutherford Butler was a physician, who along with his partner and fellow classmate Dr. Thomas Heathe Slater, became the first African Americans to obtain a pharmacy license in Georgia. Together they opened Atlanta's first African American owned drug store, Butler & Slater Drugstore.

Henry Rutherford Butler was born in 1862. PGM Butler spent his youth on a farm, where he received no formal education. E. E. Green, a noted African American educator who later became a physician and druggist in Macon, Georgia, played a pivotal role in Butler's education. In the evenings after work, Green and his wife tutored Butler in preparation for college. The effort proved a success, and in 1883 Butler entered Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. After graduating four years later, he continued his education at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, where he graduated with a medical degree in 1890.

That same year, Butler moved to Atlanta, where he began his medical practice. In 1893 he married Selena Sloan, a native of Thomasville Georgia and graduate of Spelman College. Henry Rutherford Butler Jr., the couple's only child, was born in 1899. Following in his father's footsteps, Butler Jr., a graduate of Atlanta University (later Clark Atlanta University) and Harvard University Medical School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, became a doctor and established a medical practice and family in Los Angeles, California.

As Jim Crow took hold of the region, Butler and his Meharry classmate Thomas Heathe Slater established a medical practice and drugstore for black residents on Wheat Street (later Auburn Avenue) in 1891. The two obtained the first pharmacy license in Georgia to be granted to African Americans. Butler and Slater purchased a store owned by J. C. Huss, a white druggist who trained Moses Amos, the first licensed African American pharmacist in Georgia. After two decades in business, Butler Slater and Company changed ownership when Amos bought the drugstore, reopening it in 1914 in the Odd Fellows building near the corner of Butler Street (later Jesse Hill Jr. Drive) and Auburn Avenue. Butler's medical practice, however, spanned forty years. Later in his career, around 1912, Butler furthered his studies in gynecology, obstetrics, and pediatrics at Harvard University Medical School.

PGM Butler cofounded the first professional organizations for black physicians at local, state, and national levels. These included the Atlanta Medical Association of Physicians, Dentists, and Pharmacists (later Atlanta Medical Association) in 1890 and the Georgia State Medical Association of Physicians, Dentists, and Pharmacists (later the Georgia State Medical Association) in 1893.

His other contributions to the health and well-being of the city and state's black citizenry included the establishment in 1909 of Atlanta's Fair Haven Infirmary, a contemporary of other hospitals that opened during the early twentieth century for African American doctors and patients. Butler also served as both dean and principal teacher at the School of Nursing at Morris Brown College in Atlanta.

Adding to Butler's professional achievements were his community activities. He wrote general interest columns and stories about the city's African American community for the Atlanta Constitution and the Atlanta Independent, a black newspaper published from 1903 to 1928 that described itself as the "official organ of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows and Knights of Pythias." He played a significant role in establishing social and cultural institutions for African American boys and young men, chief among them the Butler Street YMCA and, along with educator John Hope, District Ten of the Atlanta Area Boy Scouts of America. Butler and his wife were early members of the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, founded in 1919, which later merged with the Southern Regional Council. He was also a member of the Big Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, where he served as a steward until his death.

Among Butler's fraternal affiliations were Omega Psi Phi and Sigma Pi Phi fraternities and the Prince Hall Masons of Georgia. In the latter, Butler was the ninth grand master of the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Georgia from 1901 until his death in 1931, when he was succeeded by John Wesley Dobbs, who served until his death in 1961. Under Butler's leadership, the lodge went from an organization encumbered with liabilities to one that prospered. When the Pan-African Congress, organized by W. E. B. Du Bois in 1919 to challenge the European colonization of Africa, held its second meeting in 1921, Butler served as a delegate representing the Masons of Georgia.

Butler died on December 17, 1931. He and his wife, who died in 1964, are buried in Atlanta's Oakland Cemetery. In 1955 Lincoln University, Butler's alma mater, awarded him an honorary Doctor of Science degree. That same year, the Yonge Street Elementary school in Atlanta was renamed Henry R. Butler Elementary School. The family papers of Selena Sloan Butler are housed at the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History in Atlanta^[1].

• (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/14140272/henry-rutherford-butler: accessed 23 November 2022), memorial page for Dr Henry Rutherford Butler Sr. (11 Apr 1862–17 Dec 1931), Find a Grave Memorial ID 14140272, citing Oakland Cemetery, Atlanta, Fulton County, Georgia, USA; Maintained by JOE SNOW (contributor 50238488) .

Sources

1. ↑ https://yorkritegapha.com/h_r_butler/

• 1900 Census: "1900 United States Federal Census"
  Year: 1900; Census Place: Atlanta Ward 4, Fulton, Georgia; Roll: 199; Page: 2; Enumeration District: 0063; FHL microfilm: 1240199
  Ancestry Sharing Link - Ancestry Record 7602 #15086603
  Henry H Butler (37), married, Physician, head of household in Atlanta Ward 4, Fulton, Georgia. Born in North Carolina, USA.
• 1910 Census: "1910 United States Federal Census"
  Year: 1910; Census Place: Atlanta Ward 4, Fulton, Georgia; Roll: T624_191; Page: 1A; Enumeration District: 0071; FHL microfilm: 1374204
  Ancestry Sharing Link - Ancestry Record 7884 #3467686
  Henry R Butler (48), married, Medical, head of household in Atlanta Ward 4, Fulton, Georgia, USA. Born in North Carolina.

See also:

• Carmolingo, Nicole. "Henry Rutherford Butler." New Georgia Encyclopedia, last modified Apr 10, 2021. https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/science-medicine/henry-rutherford-butler-1862-1931/
• Biographical sketch published in: The black side : a partial history of the business, religious and educational side of the Negro in Atlanta, Ga. by E.R. Carter, 1894

• "Georgia Deaths, 1928-1943", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QJX9-KLL7 : Sat Mar 09 02:47:43 UTC 2024), Entry for Henry Rutherford Buster and Caroline Buster, 1931.