Butler Ames

1871–1954 — Born Lowell, August 22, 1871; died November 6, 1954 (Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, via Wikipedia).

Former congressman and the first tenant named in the divided house: apartment 1 at 236 Fairmount Street in 1931, while his sister Edith and her husband owned it.[C-052]

Documented profile. Built from records we have read: deeds, directories, newspapers, inscriptions. Each statement links to its source.

Life

Butler Ames was born in Lowell, went to Phillips Exeter and to West Point (class of 1894), resigned his commission to study engineering at MIT, and came home to manufacturing and politics: Lowell common council in 1896, the Massachusetts House from 1897, and in the Spanish–American War lieutenant colonel and adjutant of the Sixth Massachusetts, with a spell as civil administrator of the Arecibo district of Puerto Rico. He sat in Congress as a Republican for ten years, 1903 to 1913, and then went back to business: the United States Cartridge Company, the Heinze Electric Company, Wamesit Power and Ames Textile, all in Lowell.

In 1931 he was living at 236 Fairmount Street, in the first of the apartments his brother-in-law Charles Brooks Stevens had made of the house. It was a family arrangement: the Stevenses, “of Tewksbury,” owned the castle, and Edith Stevens was Butler Ames’s sister. The same directory lists, in the third apartment, a purchasing agent of the Lawrence Manufacturing Company, whose president was Stevens.

He is better known for another house. Taken with the Villa del Balbianello on Lake Como on his first visit to Europe in 1911, he set out to buy it, nearly lost it to a son of the Kaiser in 1914, and finally bought it in 1919, restoring it and keeping a guest book there for half a century. His own account, recorded on dictaphone, was published by his family. He lived until 1954; his father had built the stone “castle” on Prospect Hill in Tewksbury where, according to a 2019 local history, Butler Ames lived until his death.

Records and artifacts

The 1931 street directory
Lowell city directory, 1931, street section: “236 Ames Butler — 1; Cameron Donald F — 2; Wolcott John G — 2; Sharp William E jr — 3; r McGowan John J.” Internet Archive.

On the timeline

by 1931

The house is let as apartments

The 1931 city directory lists three households at 236 Fairmount Street — flat 1, Butler Ames, president of the Heinze Electric Company and almost certainly the owner’s brother-in-law; flat 2, Donald F. Cameron and John G. Wolcott, a grammar-school master; flat 3, William E. Sharpe jr., a purchasing agent — and later directories four to six, with a machinist’s family at the rear in 1936. The owner, Charles Brooks Stevens, lived in Tewksbury. The 1981 survey’s "mid-20th century" conversion was in fact complete by 1931.[C-021, C-017]

DocumentedCharles Brooks Stevens

What is uncertain: When the division began — under Stevens after 1925, or earlier — is not known.

Connected people

What remains uncertain

How long he lived at Fairmount Street: the 1931 directory and a 1932 Andover list (“Ames, B., 236 Fairmount St., Lowell”) are the records found so far.
His wife’s name as printed (“Fifille W.”) has not been checked against another record.

Research leads (not yet verified)

Clues gathered from the research compilation and from secondary sources. Published so that others can follow them; none has yet been confirmed against an original record.

Larz F. Neilson, Wilmington Town Crier (2019): “Their son, Butler Ames, lived in the Castle until his death in 1954” — the Tewksbury house. Not checked against a record.

Records consulted

Research notes: C-052.

Help us get Butler right

This page is a working record, not a finished one. If you are a descendant, a collector, a local historian or an archivist and you hold anything connected to Butler Ames — a photograph, a letter, a diary, an object, a family story, a document we have misread — we would like to hear from you. We publish nothing without permission, credit every contribution, and correct the page when the evidence says we should.

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