Benjamin Carpenter SAWYER

Benjamin Carpenter Sawyer was born in the family home at Mill Rift. His father, James, had settled there in 1808. His middle name comes from the surname of the second wife (Hannah Carpenter) of his great-grandfather (Major John Wood). The name may also reflect the Benjamin Carpenter of local fame.

As a young main, Ben had been a logger on the Delaware River. He came West before he married and worked at South Port, WI (now Kenosha). He returned East but the western fever was in his blood. In 1842 he returned West and walked from Milwaukee to Green Bay, WI. He carefully appraised the land between these places, judging what would be the most suitable for a farm. In all this distance, he selected property 4 miles south of Waupun because of its fine virgin timber, rich soil, water running through the farm and easy access to a trading post, Waupun. He purchased this farm from the government for $1.25 per acre. He returned East, married a wife (Mary Valentine at Goshen, NY in April 1846) and started a family.

In 1850, he, his wife and 2 children (Libbie and Edgar) came West. His land was entirely frontier country. They spent the first winter with their neighbors, the Titus family. The men of the neighborhood cleared the land for crops the next Spring, and put up a cabin from the logs they cut. After prosperity came, he put up a fine brick house and furnished it in grand style. After his sons left home, he found farming too hard, so he sold the farm, built another fine home in Waupun and retired there. In 1894, when we was 75 years old, he suffered a massive stroke. He recovered but was never able to walk again. But never had another one and lived another 15 years.

Benjamin was the first of this branch of the Sawyer family to pioneer and later settle in the West (Wisconsin). Two brothers, William and Michael, settled in the (then) middle west in later years.

In his young days, he was outgoing and liked to be with people. After his stroke, he was so incapacitated that he was very lonely. The grandchildren took turns staying with him and Aunt Libbie after Grandma's death. His grandaughter Ruth Sawyer Thompson, daughter of Benjamin Franklin, used to wonder what her family could do to help if anything happened. He was always the head of the house, domineering, yet liberal with his children and grandchildren.

In the East the family were Presbyterian. But there being no such church in Waupun, they became Congregationalists. He was a deacon in that church for many years. He was also a very religious man and high Christian standards ruled his life. After he was paralyzed, at twilight, he would sit in his wheelchair near a window and softly sing or hum the old hymns. His favorite was "How Tedious and Tasteless the Hours When Jesus No Longer I See". One of the outstanding things Ruth remembers were morning and evening devotions at his house. His prayers were very lengthy. When she was there in the morning, she would be on pins and needles lest he not conclude his prayers for me to get to school on time. The children always knelt for prayers and at night invariably Ruth went to sleep on her knees. It was a Chinese puzzle how to get her upstairs to bed.

Here's another picture of Benjamin, taken later in his life (extracted from a family photo):

Note: 'The 7 Men Who Rule the World from the Grave' are 1 Darwin, 2 Marx, 3 Julius Wellhausen ('higher criticism'), [Einstein, thru no fault of his own,] 4 Freud, 5 John Dewey, 6 John Maynard Keynes and 7 Soren Kierkegaard (cf br-7mrwg).

The leading figures of the 2nd Great Awakening were Timothy Dwight (1752-1817) in the Northeast, Charles G Finney (1792-1875) in New York, and Francis Asbury (1745-1816) in the mid-Atlantic and Southern states (cf Joel Rosenberg's book 'Implosion').

Michael Knox Beran's 2007 bk Forge of Empires 1861-71: 3 Revolutionary Statesmen and the World They Made i.e. Lincoln (freed a subjugated race and transformed the American Republic), Bismarck (overthrew the petty Teutonic princes, defeated the House of Austria and last of the imperial Napoleons, and united the German nation) and Tsar Alexander II (broke the chains of the serfs and brought the rule of law to Russia).

The British Empire remained the leading Great Power of the world during the 19C. By the early 1800s the powerful European nations had built vast colonial empires. Britain, France, The Netherlands, Portugal and Spain ruled nearly 1/3 of Asia, controlling trade between Asia and the West. Manchu China remained mostly closed until Britain forced it open in the Opium War 1839-42 (leading to later rebellions and revolution in a xenophobic China). Ottoman decline continued (see ToN).

The Brothers Grimm (Jacob & Wilhelm) began to collect 'Maerchen' (short, popular tales w/magical elements) in 1806, the year Prussia was defeated by Napoleon and Hegel completed his bk The Phenomenology of Spirit. The disparate German territories suffered under French occupation, contributing to a gradual emergence of a natl awareness, amplified by the Romantic movement among writers and intellectuals. A leading poet, Clemens von Brentano, encouraged the Grimms to collect these tales, believing w/them that only in folk culture can genuine culture and authentic traditions reside. Their 1st volume was pub'd in 1812, the year the tide began to turn against Napoleon, and the 2nd in 1814 (postdated 1815), the year of his defeat (FT Dec 2015).