Clementina Rowe was born in
Wexford, Ireland, on 30 July 1820. Her parents were English. When but a child past ten years of age, she became immensely interested in missionary work, being made a collector in the Sunday school, which she attended, for the missionaries, and always looked back with considerable interest to the $60 which she collected the first year. Traveling day and night, through forests and jungles. The Butlers finally reached a place of safety in the heart of the Himalayas. Their hiding place was discovered, however, and they fled from place to place, until with the fall of Lucknow, the mutiny/revolt was finally ended. Mrs. Butler was the only American woman who witnessed the revolt of 1857. After the country had quieted down, Mr. and Mrs. Butler again took up their missionary work, and continued for eight years. Butler was one of seven women to found the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the
Methodist Episcopal Church. She spoke in
Carnegie Hall during the Jubilee held in
New York City. The couple returned to the scene of their labors in India in 1883, and ten years later, Butler Hall, a building for the use of the theological seminary at Bareilly, was dedicated, and when Mrs. Butler last visited India, accompanied by her daughter, Miss
Clementina Butler, she was present at the exercised attending the laying of the cornerstone of the Mrs. William Butler Memorial Hospital at Baroda. ==Death and legacy==