H. Karl Butler
American businessman and philanthropist
H. Karl Butler or Henry Karl Butler (18 July 1882 – 13 December 1926) was an American businessman and philanthropist. He was the grandson of Edwin Merrill, an Akron clay products industrialist. Butler was born with Pott's disease, which is tuberculosis of the spine. He was disabled, his back was deformed,
he walked with a limp, and he suffered constant joint pain.
He was a businessman, political aide, philanthropist, and a benefactor to the Akron Area Council (now Great Trail Council
), Boy Scouts of America. He donated the land on which Akron Area Council built Camp Manatoc, which opened in 1923.
Early years
Butler grew up in Akron and acquired a love for camping and the outdoors through George Atwater, his pastor at the Church of Our Savior. Atwater created an organization for boys called the Young Crusaders. In 1900, Butler went on the group's first campout, 10 years before Scouting officially started in the US.
David Atwater, who was George's son, wrote in 1980: I knew Mr. Karl Butler and he always recalled that as a boy he went camping with my father, the Rev.
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