Name: Sawyer, Alfred I. (1799-1849)
Other Names: Sawyer, Ira, named changed February 18, 1822 to
Sawyer, Alfred Ira
Born: 10/06/1799
Birthplace: Harvard, MA
Died: 07/31/1849
Death Location: Dover, NH
Residence: Harvard, MA
Marlborough, MA
Dover, NH 1823, 1830, 1840, 1843
Nationality: American
Occupation: .
Grist Mill Owner
Sawyer Mills, Textile Mill Owner, 1824-1849
Father: Sawyer, Phinehas (1768-1820)
Mother: Whitney, Hannah (1773-1849)
Relations: Siblings:
Sawyer, Zenas (Sawyer Mills)
Sawyer, Francis A. (d.1881; Sawyer Mills)
Sawyer, Jonathan (c.1817-; m. Martha Perkins; son Charles Henry Sawyer; ran Sawyer Mills after his brother, Alfred)
Spouse: Davis, Nancy (1800-1840), September 22, 1829, Lowell
Children: Hannah, born 1830; m. 1852, Cyrus M. Battles
Charles Alfred, born 1837
Notes: Isaac Wendell leased mill privileges at the Third Falls of the Bellamy River to an enterprising newcomer to Dover, Alfred I. Sawyer of Marlborough, MA. Sawyer had been in town about a year and saw great potential for cloth manufacturing on the Bellamy. He built a new two story woolen mill on the site of Benjamin Libbey's grist mill, had a new dam constructed there by builder William Drew, and began to dress cloth in the samll factory. In 1825, Sawyer added carding machines to the mll and the following year purchased the rights to operate a grist mill on the Second Falls. He began manufacturing flannels with one set of machinery; in 1837 a second set was added.
By the time of his death 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 Alred's three brothers, Zenas (who retired in 1852), Francis A. of Boston, and Jonathan, who was only 32.
SEE ALSO: Search Terms "Sawyer Woolen Mills"
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.
Eleanor G. Sawyer, Sawyer Families of New England, 1636-1900. (Camden, ME: Penobscot Press, 1995), 213, 262.
Vital Records of Marlborough, Massachusetts, To the End of the Year 1849. (Worcester, Massachusetts: Franklin P. Rice, 1908), 165.
Deaths, Dover Enquirer, Dover, NH, August 7, 1849, 3.