Surname Saturday ~ Sawyer of Lancaster, Massachusetts

SAWYER

This is another case of “three brothers came to America”.  There were three Sawyer brothers, and they settled in Rowley, Newbury, and Lancaster, Massachusetts.   Tradition is that they came together, but there is only proof that Thomas arrived early and Edward and William do not appear in records until after 1643.
 

Thomas Sawyer lived first in Ipswich, and appears in the records in 1636.  In 1643 some land in Rowley, Massachusetts was set off to Thomas Sawyer and to Edward Sawyer.  Thomas left Rowley to settle Nashaway Plantation, now known as Lancaster, where he is on the list of proprietors in 1647.  He was admitted as a freeman in 1654.  His house was on the East side of Main Street near  today's Seventh Day Adventist School (Atlantic Union College).   

During King Phillip’s War the local native Indians held several raids on Lancaster.  On 10 February 1675 there was a massacre which killed Thomas Sawyer’s son, Ephraim, and his father-in-law, John Prescott.  The town was abandoned for several years, and when it was re-settled Thomas Sawyer was a local leader in the growth of the town.  In 1705, another war broke out between England and France and there was another raid on the town.   Thomas Sawyer was able to survive all this and died in 1706, at age 90.  He has a very primitive gravestone in the Lancaster burial ground.

Thomas Sawyer's headstone
from FindAGrave.com

Thomas’s son, Joshua removed to Woburn in 1670 and was elected a freeman.  He fought in King Phillip’s War as a member of Captain Henchman’s company in 1676. 

For more information on the Sawyer family, see the History of the Town of Lancaster, Massachusetts by Abijah Perkins Marvin and the book The Birth, Marriage and Death Register, Church Records and Epitaphs and Lancaster, Massachusetts 1643-1850 by Henry S. Nourse, 1890.  There are two articles in The American Genealogist,  “Mary Carter, First Wife of Nathaniel Sawyer of Lancaster, Massachusetts” by Frank G. Lesure, 2000, Volume 75, pages 51 – 54 and also “The Children of Thomas Sawyer of Lancaster” by Claude W. Barlow, 1954, Volume 30.  See also the book Sawyer Familes II: Edward, William, Thomas, 1636 – 2005 by Eleanor Grace Sawyer, Penobscot Press, 2005.  There is a manuscript at NEHGS “Genealogy of the Sawyers of England, from which the American line descended” by Fannie Sawyer Quinn call number Mss A 4631 (8 typed pages).

My Sawyer genealogy:

Generation 1:  Thomas Sawyer, son of John Sawyer and Agnes Sharpe, born in 1616 in Lincolnshire, England, died on 12 September 1706 in Lancaster, Massachusetts; married on 2 July 1648 in Rowley, Massachusetts to Mary Prescott, daughter of John Prescott and Mary Platts alias Gawkroger, baptized on 24 February 1630 in Sowerby, Yorkshire, England and died in April 1716 in Lancaster, Massachusetts.  Thirteen children.

Generation 2: Joshua Sawyer, born 13 March 1655 in Lancaster, died on 14 July 1738 in Woburn, Massachusetts; married on 2 January 1678 in Concord, Massachusetts to Sarah Wright, daughter of John Wright and Priscilla Byfield.  She was born on 16 February 1652 in Woburn.  Seven children.

Generation 3:  Mary Sawyer, born about 1681, died 1766; married on 19 December 1698 in Woburn to Robert Convers, son of James Convers and Hannah Carter.  He was born 29 December 1677 in Woburn, died on 20 July 1738.  Twelve children.

Generation 4:  Susanna Converse m. Caleb Simonds

Generation 5: Ruth Simonds m. Andrew Munroe

Generation 6: Luther Simonds Munroe m. Olive Flint

Generation 7: Phebe Cross Munroe m. Robert Wilson Wilkinson

Generation 8: Albert Munroe Wilkinson m. Isabella Lyons Bill

Generation 9: Donald Munroe Wilkinson m. Bertha Louise Roberts (my grandparents)

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Copyright 2013, Heather Wilkinson Rojo