George Butler

October 4, 2010; 11:34 AM • by RVANews staff

Boat Builder
Reedville, Virginia

For more than one hundred years, the Butler family has been handcrafting wooden boats in Reedville. Situated between the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers on Virginia’s Northern Neck, Reedville was established in 1874 as home base for a large menhaden fishery. George Butler’s grandfather, Sam Butler, purchased the site on which he would establish the Reedville Marine Railway boatyard in 1906. In the 1970s George joined the family business. He draws from three generations of shared knowledge to build both commercial and pleasure boats using traditional Chesapeake designs and methods. Butler does not use drawings or plans but rather draws upon experience and familiarity with the waters of the Bay. He has built all sizes and types of boat from the Chesapeake deadrises used for crabbing, oystering, and fishing to large charter boats. He typically uses white cedar and oak in the construction of his highly desirable wooden boats. Today, George runs the boatyard and represents the finest of maritime craftspeople. Virginia’s former Commissioner of Marine Resources, William Pruitt, once said his favorite skiff “was a Butler skiff and it was the best boat in the world.” George passed on the tradition of boat building by participating in the Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Program, and now his son Wesley is also part of maritime life, working on tug boats out of Reedville, and also helping his father build boats.