John Button (soldier)
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Major John Button (May 18, 1772 – November 9, 1861) was an American-born Upper Canada settler (founder of Buttonville, Ontario), sedentary Canadian militia officer and founder of the 1st York Light Dragoons (also as Troop of Markham Dragoons or Captain Button's Dragoons).
Button was born in New London, Connecticut[1] to Joseph Button and Mary Ann Atwell.[2] He was the fourth generation of Buttons in America (the first ancestor is believed to be Matthias Button (1610–1672), who arrived in the Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony around 1633).
In 1790 John Button was working as a cooper and married Elizabeth Williams (1772–1847) in Dutchess County, New York in 1795. With the end of the American Revolution and not being an active United Empire Loyalist, Button would not begin the process of migrating north to Canada until the ratification of the Jay Treaty in 1795. In 1798 he petitioned the then President of the Executive Council and Administrator of Upper Canada Peter Russell for land in Upper Canada. Not waiting for the approval of his request his family settled in at Crowland Township (in now Welland, Ontario) in the Niagara Region (with family members already residents in the township) from 1799 to 1801. Once the grant was approved in 1801 (by Peter Hunter) they settled on 200 acres (81 ha) of land along Yonge Street (somewhere north of Bloor Street as Park lots ran north–south direction south of Bloor) in York, Upper Canada. He later sold this grant, moved north to Markham in 1803 and obtained 200 acres (81 ha) around the area now known as Buttonville, Ontario around 1805.[3]
Military career
Button joined the local militia in 1808 as a Lieutenant with the North York Regiment of Militia and established his cavalry troop, Light Dragoons, in 1810. Despite the end of the War of 1812, Button saw the need to maintain military alertness and requested to maintain his troop's readiness. Button was promoted as Major in 1831, had participated in the Battle of Detroit during the War of 1812 and later in the Rebellion of 1837 where he saw action at the Battle of Montgomery's Tavern.