Sawyer, Jonathan (1817-1891)

Name:

Sawyer, Jonathan (1817-1891)

Born:

06/07/1817

Birthplace:

Marlborough, MA

Died:

06/20/1891

Death Location:

Dover, NH

Residence:

Marlborough, MA
Dover, NH as a teenager, 1849-1891
Lowell, MA 1835-1839
Watertown, NY 1839-1849

Nationality:

American

Occupation:

Textile dyer, 1836-1839.
Mill Owner, Watertown, NY, 1839-1849.
Mill Owner, Sawyer Mills (later known as Z. & J. Sawyer, later as F. A. & J. Sawyer, and later as Sawyer Woolen Mills), Dover, NH, after the 1849 death of his brother, Alfred I. Sawyer.

Father:

Sawyer, Phineas (1768-1820)

Mother:

Whitney, Hannah (1773-1849)

Relations:

Siblings:
Sawyer, Alfred I. (d.1849; built and operated Sawyer Woolen Mills)
Sawyer, Zenas (Sawyer Mills)
Sawyer, Francis A. (d.1881; Sawyer Mills)

Spouse:

Perkins, Martha (1816-1896), June 25, 1839

Children:

Charles Henry, born March 30, 1840, Watertown, NY; died January 18, 1908; m. Susan Ellen Cowan; N.H. Gov. 1887-1889; ran Sawyer Woolen Mills after his father; 5 children
Mary Elizabeth, born October 28, 1842; died February 26, 1899
Francis Asbury, born March 5, 1845, Dover; died December 23, 1889, Boston, MA; m. Emma K. Smith
Roswell Douglas, born March 14,1848, Dover; died 1894, Rome, Italy; m. Edwina D. Lowe; artist; res. New York City
Martha Frances, born March 3, 1851; m. Winfield S. Bradley
Alice May, born July 24, 2853; m. Fred W. Payne
Frederic Jonathan, born July 1860; died November 28, 1902, New Bedford, MA; m. Isabella Doatson

Notes:

By the time of the death of Alfred I. Sawyer (building/owner of Sawyer Mills) in 1849, the cloth dressing, carding, and flannel manufacturing businesses established 25 years earlier by Alfred Sawyer were thriving, profit-making operations on the two falls below Libbey's bridge. The businesses passed on to Alfred's three brothers, Zenas (who retired in 1852), Francis A. of Boston, and Jonathan, who was only 32.
Jonathan Sawyer was even more of an entrepreneur than his eldest brother. In 1853, he was the first factory owner to use gas for light; in 1858 he purchases the Lower Mill at the First Falls with two sets of machinery: by 1860 that mill contained four set, by 1863 eight sets, and by 1882 sixteen sets.
In 1863, Jonathan and Francis Sawyer has Swain's Pond in Barrington (the headwater of the Bellamy) enlarged in order to serve as a reservoir for their mills. The next year, a round brick reservoir, eight bricks thick and eighteen feet high was constructed on the hill adjacent to the mills to hold water not only for manufacturing purposes, but also to supply Jonathan's new 26 room mansion on Linden Street with plumbing facilities and an artificial pond. The 1864 round reservoir is now a private residence on Brichwood Place.
During the Civil War, Sawyer Mills machinery was gradually converted from flannel production to woolen manufacturing. Soldiers' uniforms for the Union Army and N.H. regiments were made here in Dover at that time.
SOURCE: Heritage Walking Tour, 1988.

William T. Davis, Editor. The New England States, Their Constitutional, Judical, Educational, Commercial, Professional and Industrial History. Volume I. (Boston, MA: D. H. Hurd & Co., 1897), 249-253.

Vital Records of Marlborough, Massachusetts, To the End of the Year 1849. (Worcester, Massachusetts: Franklin P. Rice, 1908), 165.