Ovid Butler (February 7, 1801 – July 12, 1881) was an American attorney, newspaper publisher, abolitionist, and university founder from the state of Indiana.

His father, Chancey Butler, moved the family west to Jennings County, Indiana, in 1817.

Butler held a firm opposition to slavery on moral and religious grounds, which was reflected in his creation of the political, abolitionist newspaper Free Soil Banner in 1849.

[4] That same year he gave up his law practice and sought early retirement due to poor health.

Butler's summer months were spent at Indiana's Lake Wawasee where he had a residence in the vicinity of Vawter Park Village.