James Butler

James Butler (1855 – February 20, 1934) was an American businessman from New York and prominent owner of racehorses and racetracks. With his cousin, Mother Marie Joseph Butler, he founded Marymount College in Tarrytown, New York in memory of his late wife. Life Early years Butler was born in 1855 in County Kilkenny, Ireland, on farming property held by his family for hundreds of years. After education in a Russellam village parish school, he emigrated to Boston, with his parents, when he was 20 years old, and began farming, in Goshen Mountain, Massachusetts. He returned to New York in under two years, joining a brother who had emigrated before him, Butler then started working for hotels in Chicago and New York City, at which he learned food service operations. Grocery business