The Butterfield family in England dates from 1066 when they left Normandy with William the Conqueror, and fought in the battle of Hastings.Benjamin Butterfield married Ann Jundon of Moldon, Englan. They already had two small children when Benjamin and his family joined with Benjamin's young half-brother Samual, and his older sister Susanna, with her husband the Reverend Matthew Mitchell and their children for the trip to America in 1635. Ann died in 1661, and in 1663, he married again, to Hannah, the widow of Thomas Whittemore.He was known to be in Charleston, in the Bay Colony of Massachusetts in 1638, and then moved to Woburn. His name appears among the first town orders of Woburn and, in 1643, he was made a freeman. In 1645, Benjamin's name appears on Woburn's tax list.In 1652, the inhabitants of Woburn petitioned for leave to explore the west side of the Concord River. The report was, "a very comfortable place to accommodate a company of God's people". In 1658, Benjamin headed a petition of 29 names from Woburn and Concord for a tract of land six miles square, "to begin at the Merrimack River, at the neck of land next to the Concord River," to run southerly on the Concord River and westerly into wild country. This spot was known to the Indians as Naamkeek. The six mile tract was occupied in 1654 by Benjamin and his associates, including the family names of Learned, Chamberlin, Fletcher, Adams, Proctor, Hildreth, Blodgett and Parker.In 1655 the town was incorporated under the name of Chelmsford, Massachusetts. The land adjoining was occupied by Rev. John Eliot with a reservation for Christianized Indians called "Wamesit." The line between the Indians and the English was run "on the east side of Butterfield's high way" and marked by a ditch. On this highway Benjamin pitched his farm and built his house, somewhere within what is now Ward 4, Lowell, Massachusetts.Also in 1654, Benjamin was one of the signers of letters requesting the Minister of Wenham, Massachusetts, the Rev. John Fiske, to come to Chelmsford, MA to start the Church at Chelmsford, which is now Unitarian and known as the First Congregational Society. They gave the Reverend Fiske 30 acres of meadow and 30 acres of plowable land plus a house with 3 fire rooms and brick or stone chimneys as well as 50 pounds the first year, and maintenance thereafter.In 1656, Benjamin was named as one of the citizens of Chelmsford to whom the Governor Dudley farm of 1500 acres in Billerica was conveyed. On Dec. 1, 1656, a minister at Chelmsford (probably Rev. Fiske) recorded the fact that he had baptized the sons of Benjamin Butterfield that day.In 1666, Newfields, a tract of 241 acres of Intervale, across Stony Brook and extending up the Merrimack was granted to Chelmsford. Of this, perhaps the best land in the growing town, Benjamin obtained 42 acres, the largest share of any one person.In 1686, the Indians reservation, "Wamesit" was purchased by the whites. The story of imprisonment, neglect, starvation and even selling into slavery of these peaceful Indians because the whites felt they could not be trusted during King Philip's War is a shameful one. The remnant of the "praying Indians", upon release, unable to trust the whites, moved north under the leadership of Wanalancit to join other "wild" tribes, and sold their land in "Wamesit". Three of Benjamin's sons were among the grantees: Nathaniel, Samual and Joseph. This territory, which had been occupied by Wanalancit and his tribe as a cornfield and fishing station, is now occupied by the factories of Lowell, MA. The purchase included also 500 acres upon the north and east side of the Merrimack of "wilderness land", a general term for the unsettled country outside the incorporated limits. Nathaniel and Samuel Butterfield settled on the Wamesit lands, and Joseph in the wilderness between Tyng's Pond and the river.