[6] Butler attended Princeton University and obtained a degree in Science in 1876 and he was invited to stay on for a year as an assistant professor of physics.

Butler reapplied himself studying under Frederic Edwin Church, who was wintering in Mexico for his health, in January 1884[7] before returning to study with J. Carroll Beckwith and George de Forest Brush at the Art Students League in New York.

[9] In 1902 he was invited to join the Society of Artists[2] and he was asked to make another portrait of the philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.

Whilst Carnegie was sitting for the portrait, the problem of finding places to row at Princeton was discussed.

With Carnegie's permission, Butler contacted a building firm in his home town and obtained an estimate of US$118,000 to construct a lake.

He may therefore have missed the opening of the lake in 1906 that was three and a half miles long and eight hundred feet wide.

It was reported that President Wilson tried to later persuade Carnegie to give funds to Princeton but he was told that he had already given a lake.

"[3] In 1918, Butler's association with Carnegie led to him being invited to witness and record the 1918 Solar eclipse that was observed from Baker City in Oregon.

[4] His revived interest in physics led to his 1923 book Painter and Space which coincided with his second visit to a solar eclipse.

Butler's paintings of solar eclipses were on display for many years at the Hayden Planetarium at that museum.