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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
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Our Genealogy Helper

Introduction ...

We have a couple of goals for our Gazetteer:

  • That it be a tool which helps us with planning our trips.
  • We're trying to shape our Gazetteer as a tool to help us understand the community in which our ancestors lived, the community that was part of their daily lives.
  • On our trips, we try to visit those places where our ancestors left their footprints.

By learning about Butternut (and the surrounding area) during the time that our ancestors lived, we hope to have a better understanding of both their community and its relationship to their lifes. We hope that this tool helps to give us an insight into their world.

As we add data and organize our Gazetteer to help with our family research, we will be adding to this our Genealogical Helper for Butternut. While we don't have information that is specific to any given person or family, we intend to expand our understanding about where and how people lived.

Neighboring Counties ...

When searching for family records, we have frequently made the mistake of not checking the neighboring counties.

For example, we have great-grandparents who lived in the southwest corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals and doctors were in the next county to the west. Almost all of the nearby churches and cemeteries were in the county to the south.

So when searching for records, we had our best success by looking in neighboring counties instead of the county in which they lived:  their home county contained property and probate records; the county to the west contained birth and death records; the county to the south contained their burial records. If we hadn't included the neighboring counties, we would have missed many valuable sources of information.

If you're in a similar situation, we hope that the following information helps.

Butternut is located in Ashland County.

To see how the shape of Wisconsin's counties may have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Ashland County: Bayfield, Iron, Price & Sawyer.

Below are the counties that are near Butternut. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Butternut:

  • Ashland County     (The home county of Butternut)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Butternut, with the one closest to Butternut listed first.
    • Glidden
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
    • Mellen
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the north)
      • Mellen is located in Ashland County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mellen
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 686 people
    • Tannery Town
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the north)
      • Tannery Town is located in Ashland County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tannery Town
    • White City
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
      • White City is located in Ashland County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for White City
    • High Bridge
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
  • Iron County
  • Price County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Butternut, with the one closest to Butternut listed first.
    • Park Falls
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
      • Park Falls is located in Price County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Park Falls
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,192 people
    • Lake
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southwest)
      • Lake is located in Price County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lake
      • Estimated population in 2015: 1,106 people
    • Fifield
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
    • Kennedy
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Lugerville
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
    • Phillips
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the south)
    • Worcester
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)
  • Sawyer County
    • Winter
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
  • Vilas County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Butternut, with the one closest to Butternut listed first.
    • Lac du Flambeau
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)
    • Manitowish Waters
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the east)
      • Manitowish Waters is located in Vilas County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Manitowish Waters

For an expanded list of the communities that are closest to Butternut, see our County-by-County Page for Butternut.

Cemeteries Near Butternut ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Butternut.

This is a new section and is likely to have errors. If you find an error, such as a missing cemetery or we have the wrong name, please let us know. If you know of them, we would also appreciate learning about previous or alternate names.

Although we don't have the information ourselves, if you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our list of websites on our Genealogy Helper Page for Butternut - one of the links might be able to help.

If not found below, our Cemetery List for Butternut covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Butternut, with the one closest to Butternut listed first.

  • Union Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the north)
  • St. Cecelia Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
  • Nola Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Forest Home Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
  • Mt. Hope Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
  • Morse Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Loretta Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the southwest)
  • Cayuga Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the northwest)
  • St. Patricks Cemetery
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the south)
  • Lakeside Cemetery
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the south)
  • Wildwood Cemetery
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northwest)
  • Mercer Cemetery
    (23 miles [37 km] to the northeast)
  • Continue List   (10 more) ...
    • Calvary Cemetery
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
    • Greenwood Cemetery
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
    • St. Johns Cemetery
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)

Nearby Communities in 1895 ...

We've built the following list with information that came from an Atlas published by Rand McNally in 1895. The Atlas had details such as the population of the community (which appears to have come from the 1890 Census) and whether there was a post office and/or railroad service available. We also indicate if the community no longer exists and is now historic.<1>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Butternut had a population of 273 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Butternut had a population of 351 people.

These communities are listed based on their distance from Butternut, with the one closest to Butternut listed first.

  • Park Falls
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Park Falls is located in Price County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Park Falls
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,192 people
  • Fifield
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
  • Glidden
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
  • Coolidge ‑ Historic
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
    • Coolidge is located in Price County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Coolidge
  • Morse
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Morse is located in Ashland County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Morse
  • Phillips
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the south)
  • Mellen
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the north)
    • Mellen is located in Ashland County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mellen
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 686 people
  • Mercer
    (23 miles [37 km] to the northeast)
    • Mercer is located in Iron County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mercer
  • High Bridge
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
  • Worcester
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)

We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Butternut. See our List of 1890's Communities around Butternut.

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Butternut ...

An ongoing effort between the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has resulted in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).

To share their results, the partnership has created the Chronicling America website. The goal of this partnership is to assemble a database about the current and historic newspapers of the United States. This includes a growing collection of scanned images from selected papers. All of it available to the public on their website.

Using information that we've taken from the Chronicling America website, we've identified 18 newspapers that have been published in the area around Butternut.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Butternut. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Butternut and those printed in the larger area surrounding Butternut.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 23 miles [37 km]<2> of Butternut.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we begin with the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These helpful websites offer the information directly or else point to where you can find it. Their information is open to everyone.

To help you get started, the following links will take you to the pages that are relevant to Butternut:

Footnotes ...

<1>We use the term 'Historic' broadly and it generally means that the community no longer exists. However, it can also mean that the community might still exist, but was significantly larger or had a more 'official' existence in the past than it does now. Unfortunately our sources of data have proven to be unreliable. If you can provide us with more specific information about Butternut, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<2>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or point-to-point) distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Butternut) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.