S.B. Butler Shaped Groton's Schools

Carol W. Kimball

Groton School

Kim11-047

Scrapbook

8: Communication Artifact

Documentary Artifact

The Day

New London, CT

08/20/2007

Carol W. Kimball

Appointed in 1941, Sylvester Benjamin Butler was Groton's first superintendent. Before 1941, Groton, like all Connecticut towns, was divided into numerous, small, local school districts, each with its own School-Visitor to see that the children were well educated. Groton had 23 districts before Ledyard was set off in 1836, but the number was only 12 when the districts were consolidated a century later. Sylvester was born in the Connecticut River town of Cromwell, son of George and Carrie Savage Butler. His middle name recalled Capt. Benjamin Butler who prospered in the 18th century West Indies maritime trade. Sylvester graduated from Yale University and taught in Pleasantville, New Jersey where he met Eva Lutz, a high school senior, who became his wife after Sylvester's World War I Army duty which began in May of 1917. They married in 1919 and their son, Sewall, was born in August of 1920. Sylvester earned a graduate degree from Columbia University in New York before he came to Groton in 1941. World War II increased the town's population 100.7 percent, severely straining the school system. Sylvester did a great job of obtaining federal assistance so that new schools and additions to existing buildings were constructed. He became a nationally recognized authority on federal aid to education. During his term of office new schools were built at Pleasant Valley, Fort Hill, Poquonnock Bridge and Noank. In 1953 Claude Chester and S. B. Butler School, a new school in Mystic, opened. Mr. Butler hired Carol Kimball to teach at Fort Hill School in 1949. He and his wife bought the old Woodbridge house on Gallup Hill in Ledyard, where she taught extension classes for Eastern Connecticut State University in the fields of archaeology and colonial history. He was an active member of the American Legion and for many years treasurer of the Universalist Church on Huntington Street in New London.

Butler, S. B. (Sylvester Benjamin)
Butler, George
Butler, Carrie Savage
Butler, Benjamin (Capt.)
Lutz, Eva
Butler, Sewall
Kimball, Carol

S.B. Butler School
Cromwell
Yale
World War One
World War Two
Eastern Connecticut State University
Universalist Church on Huntington Street
Columbia University
Sylvester Benjamin Butler