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| A. J. Wiggin, Portrait of Benjamin Butler,
1869 |
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| Erik A. R. Ronnberg, model of the yacht
America, 2003 |
A controversial veteran of the Civil War, 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.
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
collections.
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 collections. 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.
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