Dr. Butler was born in Northampton, Massachusetts, educated at Yale University, and, after a medical apprenticeship in Northampton, obtained a medical degree from Harvard Medical College in 1828. He spent 10 years in private practice in Worcester, Massachusetts, and frequently visited the lunatic asylum there.
In 1839, he became the first superintendent of the newly opened Boston (public) Lunatic Asylum and instituted many forward-looking practices (minimal seclusion and restraint, occupation, and recreation for patients); however, the pressure of politics led to his resignation three years later. When Dr. Brigham left the Hartford Retreat for Utica, Dr. Butler assumed the Superintendency there and remained until 1872.
Dr. Butler was a strong advocate of the curability of insanity and authored a book with that title in 1887. He proposed in an address on state preventive medicine that mental disorders be recognized as an integral part of the field of preventive medicine. He later became the first president of the State Board of Health in Connecticut and remained in that office for 10 years.
Dr. Butler was an honorary member of the Medico-Psychological Association of Great Britain, was one of the original 13 founders of the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane, and served as President (1870–73).