John Warren Butterfield

John Butterfield was a descendant of Benjamin Butterfield, who brought his family from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1638. Benjamin settled in Woburn and settled there as a freeman. John Butterfield's father, Daniel Butterfield, lived at Berne, New York, on the Van Rensselaer Manor, near Albany. In 1822 Daniel married Malinda Harriet Baker. John was born November 18, 1801, in Berne. He attended schools near his boyhood home, but his education was meager. He was employed in the staging business at an early age.

“In early life we find him in the employment of Thorpe & Sprague, of that city [Albany], as a driver, and through the solicitation of Mr. Theodore S. Faxton came to Utica [NY], where he for a time was employed in picking up passengers from the taverns and boats for Parker’s stages. After a time, he started a livery [1827] with but small accommodations. His connection to Parker & Co. continued so long as they were still in business, and was succeeded by lines of his own, wherein he was a leading manager in the State until staging was superseded by railroads.”

Butterfield started stage lines based in his hometown of Utica, New York, using Concord coaches or more commonly known as tally-ho. He had partnered with several other pioneers in the industry such as James Gardner, F.S. Faxton, Hiram Greenman, and Silas Childs. Butterfield focused largely on lines running North and South. At the peak of his business, he had forty lines running from Utica as headquarters to Ogdensburg and Sacketts Harbor on the North, and South to the Pennsylvania line, and through Chemung and Susquehanna valleys. His line overpowered Peter Cole and Henry Storms' company, which monopolized staging since 1821.

He soon expanded his transportation empire.

“He became interested in packet boats on the [Erie] canal, and in steamboats on Lake Ontario, in the construction of plank roads leading to Utica and was the originator of its street railroads. He more than any other secured the building of the Black River and Southern railroads. When the practical uses of the electrical telegraph were demonstrated he joined Faxton, Wells, Livingston and others in establishing the New York, Albany and Buffalo Telegraph Company, and urged the extension of other lines and companies. …He was a pioneer in the transportation business, and aided in developing it from the crude methods of the stage coach to those of the fast trains of our own time.”

John became aware that there was a need to ship parcels (express) by his varied transportation companies.

“In 1849 he formed the express company of Butterfield, Wasson & Co. being among the first who saw the profit to be gained by the rapid carriage of merchandise that would bear express charges. The success of that important enterprise was largely owing to him; he was a directing power in it during his life and reaped from its great distinction and pecuniary power. Later the business was conducted and is still known as the American Express Company, among the greatest corporations of the country”

Because of the pioneering success to establish an express company, other entrepreneurs in upstate New York, not far from John Butterfield's home in Utica, also started express companies by using Butterfield's vast transportation network. Henry Wells was from Auburn, NY (80-miles from Utica), and William Fargo was from Pompei, NY (50-miles from Utica) and their express companies of Wells & Co., and Livingston, Fargo & Co. became competitors of Butterfield, Wasson & Co. Butterfield saw the benefit of forming one company by consolidating the three separate companies. In 1850, The American Express Company was formed from the three companies into one consisting of two subdivisions. The company's subdivision of Wells, Butterfield & Co. would control the express business from Buffalo, NY, to the east, and the subdivision of Livingston, Fargo & Co. would control the express business from Buffalo to St. Louis, Missouri.