Gilbert Butler, a representative young business man of Utica, is prominently identified with industrial interests of the city as vice president and treasurer of the Bossert Corporation, which is extensively engaged in sheet metal stamping and the manufacture of feed mills. He has been a resident of the Mohawk valley from infancy, although his birth occurred in Albany, New York, on the 7th of December, 1886, his parents being Charles A. and Martha Davis (Gilbert) Butler of Utica, both of whom are deceased. His great-great-grandfather in the maternal line, Abijah Gilbert, who came to this country from England in 1785, was the founder of Gilbertsville, Otsego county, New York. The first of the Butler family in America was Richard Butler, who emigrated from England with the Hooker Company in 1632, settling first in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a few years later helped to found the city of Hartford, Connecticut. One of his descendants, Eli Butler, was the first of the name in the Mohawk valley, having been urged to leave Connecticut for Oneida county, New York, in 1789, by the pioneer representative of the White family who had taken up his abode here.
In the acquirement of an education Gilbert Butler attended a private boarding school at Bay Shore, Long Island, for four years, while subsequently he spent six years as a student in the Groton School at Groton, Massachusetts, and then matriculated in Harvard University, from which he was graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1909. The same year he began his business career in Utica in the service of the Utica Knitting Company, with which he continued for two years, studying the various phases of its operations. From 1911 until 1913 he was officially identified with the Marshall Knitting Company of Utica in the dual capacity of treasurer and general manager, and in the latter year became connected with the Bossert Corporation as secretary and treasurer. In 1922 he was elected to the vice presidency of this large and important industrial concern. Mr. Butler is also a director and member of the executive committee of the First National Bank of Utica.
On the 15th of October, 1910, Mr. Butler was united in marriage to Miss Grace A. Spratt of Ogdensburg, New York, daughter of Thomas Spratt, a leading attorney of northern New York, who at the request of Grover Cleveland became a director of the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States and is a prominent member of its finance committee. Mr. Spratt is likewise at the head of the Ogdensburg Bank of Ogdensburg and is a director in several large corporations. Mr. and Mrs. Butler are the parents of three children: Charles A., Elizabeth and Emily Spratt.
In community affairs Mr. Butler has always taken an active and helpful interest. He is a trustee of the Utica Public Library and has served as a director of the Chamber of Commerce and director of the Young Men's Christian Association. In club circles he has served as a governor of the Fort Schuyler Club, president of the Players Club, president of the Tennis Club of Utica, and vice president of the Sadaquada Golf Club.