John Butler was born in New London, Connecticut in 1725. His father, Walter, was a British officer stationed in the American colony. When John was 14, his family moved from New London to Fort Hunter, now Fonda, NY, where Walter Butler became useful to Sir William Johnson. In turn, Johnson helped to promote his children. Walter Butler died in 1760 aged 90 and having been a lieutenant in the British Army for 70 years.

When Johnson was given command of the expedition against Crown Point in 1755, he made John Butler a captain in the Indian department. Butler could speak several Iroquois languages and respected, and was respected by, the Iroquois. He fought in several campaigns in the French and Indian Wars. In the expedition against Fort Niagara, Butler was second-in-command of the Iroquois to Johnson, and succeeded to the command when Johnson took overall command of the expedition after General Prideaux was accidentally killed. During Pontiac's War, Butler had the difficult job of restraining the Iroquois from joining with the western tribes in support of Pontiac.

Perhaps it was because of his ability, the respect he could command from the Iroquois, and his stature as second to Johnson that Butler was disliked and even hated by Johnson's son, Sir John, and his sons-in-law, Guy Johnson and Daniel Claus. These three were constantly trying to belittle Butler's achievements and trying to put the worst interpretation on everything he did, especially after Sir William Johnson died suddenly in July 1774.

At the start of the Revolutionary War, Butler and his eldest son Walter had to flee to Newark (Niagara-on-the-Lake), leaving the rest of Butler's family as prisoners. Butler had a price on his head of $250. Early in the war, the leaders of the Indian Department, Guy Johnson and Daniel Claus, wanted to use the Iroquois to attack the rebels in New York Province but were refused by the Governor-General, Sir Guy Carleton. Johnson and Claus then left for England to the disgust of Carleton, who then appointed Butler as deputy head of the department. Butler's job was then to keep the Six Nations neutral in the war.

This all changed in May 1777 when Carleton was ordered to use the Iroquois against the rebels. Butler was neither for nor against this policy shift; he just obeyed orders. Butler and Colonel Barry St Leger organized a strike against Fort Stanwix. Just then, Claus arrived back from England with a commission as superintendent of the Indians. Carleton had no choice other than to ratify it but appointed Butler as deputy. The operation never did take the fort but Butler and Joseph Brant managed to ambush a relieving force at Oriskany and destroyed it.

In 1779, refugees from the war were becoming a problem for the commandant of Fort Niagara who was trying to feed them from his supplies. Sir Frederick Haldimand ordered Butler to negotiate with the Mississaugas to obtain land on the west bank for settlement, and in the summer of 1780, ex-Rangers Peter and James Secord, Michael Showers, Samson Lutes, and Isaac Dolson and their families moved to the west bank. Later, these families were followed by other families, mostly belonging to ex-Rangers.

After the Rangers were disbanded in 1784, Butler remained a leader of the communities on the Niagara Peninsula. He was appointed head of the Nassau Militia, which later became the Lincoln Militia with the formation of Lincoln County. The present-day Lincoln and Welland Regiment, a reserve infantry battalion, is the successor to the famous Butler's Rangers.

Colonel John Butler died in 1796, a great leader in war and peace, and a great friend and patron of the Six Nations.