The Butler-Boyce House is a handsome Italian Villa with paired arched windows and a combined cupola and railing. Edward Butler, a merchant, banker, and the first treasurer of Calhoun County, built the residence in 1858-61 on land once owned by author James Fenimore Cooper. William D. Boyce, a Chicago publisher and founder of the Boy Scouts of America, bought the house and sixty acres as a summer home in 1894. For many years it was the home of Myron B. and Anne Ells, and Anne Ells founded the Marshall Historical Society in 1961. Boyce became acquainted with the scouting movement in London in 1909 after a Boy Scout guided him through heavy fog to an address he was seeking and refused a tip, saying Boy Scouts did not accept money for doing a good deed. Impressed, Boyce returned home with pamphlets, badges, and a uniform, and he incorporated the Boy Scouts of America, now Scouting/USA, on February 8, 1910.