John Decker SAWYER

Born: 05 Feb 1851 at the Titus Homestead, Town of Chester, Dodge County, MN
Died: 31 May 1918 at Mankato, MN

Father: Benjamin Carpenter SAWYER
Mother: Mary VALENTINE

Spouse: Carrie RACE

Children (see sons1, sons2):

  • Charles Francis
  • William Elbert
  • Herbert Allen
  • Mildred Lucinda
  • Clifford Benjamin




    At right, John Decker SAWYER in 1913 ===>>


  • John was the first child born in Wisconsin at the Titus homestead in the town of Chester, Dodge County. On November 18, 1875, he was married to Carrie RACE at Waupun, WI. After the marriage, he stayed on the farm and lived in the little log cabin. Later he bought a small farm at the edge of Waupun and lived there for many years. He supplemented his farm income by making furniture, running a sorghum mill, etc. In 1894 he stepped on a rusty nail in his shop and developed blood poisoning. He almost lost his life but recovered though he did have a limb (leg) amputated. Even with this handicap he was a very busy man. He tried hard. He raised a fine family. Later they moved to Mankato, MN. He and his wife were splendid Christian people and devoted workers in the Methodist Church.

    Having graduated from nearby Lawrence College (very unusual at the time, <1%?), John served as a lay minister in the Methodist church, occasionally delivering sermons. Also, he was very inventive, designing and making many models for farm equipment, one being a roughly foot-long metal model for an automatic sugar-beet picker/processor (still in our family). Unfortunately, he talked too freely of his ideas and someone else beat him to the patent office!

    He is probably named after Major John DECKER (discussed on the page of Benjamin Carpenter), famous for his role during the American Revolution in Orange County, NY.


    John Decker Sawyer as a young man c1870



    Contemporary Events (mostly from BN HT, CHME):
    - cf BenC for earlier events
    - 19C optimism driven by peace (1815-1914), Industrial Rev, trains/ships, farm/med adv
    - 1830 Mormonism fnd'd (1 of 4mc)
    - 1843 Cyrus I Scofield born (d1921 79yo), lawyer, popularized dispensationalism; Sojourner Truth gains her freedom
    - 1844-8 President James Knox Polk (D), acq most land for US since LA purchase
    - 1848 Year of revolutions in Europe, CA gold rush begins, 'Communist Manifesto' published
    - 1848-50 President Zachary Taylor (W), military man, d. in office
    - 1850 Tai Ping rebellion in China, revolt against Manchu Dynasty (to 1864)
    - 1851 Great Exhibition in London (glass bldg?), B B Warfield born (d1921 70yo)
    - 1850-2 President Millard Fillmore (W), ZT's VP, t/o on d., auth. Matthew Perry's trip to Japan, which helped open trade
    - 1852-6 President Franklin Pierce (D), Gadsden Purchase adding NM and part of AZ to USA
    - 1853-6 British missionary David Livingstone crosses Africa, discovers Victoria Falls 1855
    - 1854-6 Crimean War; Britain, France, Turkey v. Russia ('Charge of the Light Brigade'), English nurse Florence Nightingale reforms nursing there
    - 1855 Soren Kierkegaard dies (b1813 42yo), Danish Christian existentialist philosopher
    - 1856-60 President James Buchanan (D), only pres. never m.
    - 1857-8 Indian Mutiny, (brutally) put down by Britain, cntl passes from BEIC to Brit govt, stock mkt crash 1857, 3rd Grt Awakening in Canada spreads to England, NE America (Methodist Phoebe Palmer)
    - 1860 S Carolina secedes, sparks Civil War
    - 1860-5 President Abe Lincoln (R), ass. 15 Apr (shot 5 days after war ends)
    - 1861 Unification of Italy (ldr Giuseppe Garibaldi), US Civil War begins (to 1865)
    - 1862 Bismarck PM of Prussia (to 1890, dismissed)
    - 1863 Battle of Gettysburg, 7th-Day Adventism 1rst conference (2 of 4mc)
    - 1865-8 President Andrew Johnson (D), Abe's VP t/o, finishes term, 1rst pres. impeached by House, but acquitted by 1 vote in Senate
    - 1865-90 Cowboy era in American West 25yrs
    - 1866 Austria-Prussia War, latter wins
    - 1867 US purchases Alaska from Russia (SoS Seward), Dominion of Canada formed, 2nd Reform Act passed in Britain (extends suffrage)
    - 1868 Meiji Period in Japan (to 1912)
    - 1868-76 President U S Grant (R), frmr General, Mark Twain helped him finish autobio
    - 1869 Suez Canal opened, 1rst Vatican Council (Pius IX) declares Immac Concep and papal infallibility
    - 1870 Charles Dickens dies (b1812 58yo), 'A Christmas Carol' 1842
    - 1870-1 Franco-Prussian War, latter wins, German Empire formed, [Kaiser] Wm I Emp., Paris Commune opposes natl govt and peace terms, later crushed by troops
    - 1872 Triple Alliance formed (to 1914); Germany, Austria, Italy
    - 1874 1rst Impressionist exhibition held in Paris, G K Chesterton born (d1936 62yo)
    - 1875 Charles Grandison Finney dies (b1792 83yo), 2nd Grt Awakening ldr
    - 1876 Little Big Horn, [Gen. George] 'Custer's Last Stand'
    - 1876-80 President R B Hayes (R), alleged 'stolen' election
    - 1879 Christian Science incorp. (3 of 4mc)
    - 1880-1 President James Garfield (R), ass. 19 Sep, wrote Greek/Latin same time, Boer War
    - 1881 Oct 26, Shootout at the OK Corral in Tombstone, AZ
    - 1881-4 President Chester Arthur (R), VP finished term, honest and efficient
    - 1883 Germany introduces sickness insurance (progressives admire Bismarck)
    - 1884 3rd Reform Act passed in Britain, Jehovah's Witnesses 1rst incorp (4 of 4mc)
    - 1887 peak of RR-bldg @ 13k miles (avg 5k/yr 1870-1913, Nathan Lewis in 28 Oct 2013 Forbes)
    - 1882 John Nelson Darby dies (b1800 82yo), PB ldr, taught dispensationalism, Ralph Waldo Emerson dies (b1803 79yo) lib philosopher/poet
    - 1884-8 President Grover Cleveland (D), Statue of Liberty unveiled 28 Oct 1886
    - 1887-9 Italy invades Ethiopia
    - 1888-92 President Benjamin Harrison (R), gson of #9 Wm H H (W) p1841, 6 new states: ND, SD, MT, ID, WY, WA
    - 1888 [Kaiser] Wm II of Germany (to 1914)
    - 1892 Charles H Spurgeon dies (b1834 58yo), pastor of New Park Baptist Church in London
    - 1892-6 President Grover Cleveland again
    - 1893 Labor Party fnd'd in Britain by socialist Keir Hardie [uh oh]
    - 1894 Alfred Dreyfus affair in France, Tsar Nicholas II (to 1917)
    - 1895 Conservative Christians publish 'The Fundamentals' (1 Jesus divine, 2 b. of virgin, 3 d. as sacrifice, 4 [bodily arose and] will return, 5 inerrancy), Rhodesia fnd'd by Cecil Rhodes
    - 1896 Wm McKinley (R) elected president (to 1900)
    - 1898 Spanish American War over Cuba under President Wm McKinley, US annexes Hawaii, gets Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico from Spain; Battle of Omdurman, Brits defeat Sudan rebels, Geo Mueller dies (b1805 93yo), PB pastor, English social reformer, fnd'd orphanages
    - 1899 1rst Hague Peace Conference, Boer War to 1902, D L Moody dies (b1837 62yo) pietism v. modernism
    - 1900 TR (R) elected president (to 1908), Boxer Rebellion in China, Germany begins Naval arms race w/Britain, Nietzsche dies (b1844 56yo) nihilistic philsopher
    - 1901 King Edward VII of Britain to 1910 9yrs, terrorism w/in Russia, Russia invades Manchuria, Boxer Rebellion in China
    - 1902 Anglo-Japanese alliance formed
    - 1903 split of moderate Mensheviks and extreme Bolsheviks in Russia
    - 1904-5 Russia and Japan at war (Japan wins), Entente cordiale between Britain and France
    - 1906 British Labor party formed (mainly from Liberal Party malcontents), 1rst modern battleship launched in Britain, SF CA earthquake, liberal rev in Persia (Iran), Azusa St Revival (LA CA, i.e. 'Holiness' movement)
    - 1907 Entente cordiale between Britain and Russia, so now 'Triple Entente' v. 'Triple Alliance' of Germany, AHE and Italy
    - 1908 Wm H Taft (R) elected president (to 1912), Belgium t/o Congo, Austria annexes Bos-Herz, Rev in Turkey by 'Young Turks', Russian-supported counter-rev in Persia (Iran) succeeds
    - 1909 Old-age pensions introduced in Britain, Henry Ford pioneers ass'y line, Robt Peary reaches N Pole
    - 1910 K Geo V of Britain to 1936 26yrs, Japan annexes Korea, British suffragettes become more militant, Edinburgh [missions] Conference sparks ecumenical movement
    - 1911 Rev in Mexico -> disorder, Roald Amundsen reaches S Pole, Sun Yat-sen leads rev in China, overthrows Manchu Dynasty, forms republic 1912, Italy v. Turkey war
    - 1912 Woodrow Wilson (D) elected president (to 1920), Titanic sinks k1513, 1rst Balkan War Bulg, Greece, Serb, Mont v. Turkey (frmr win)
    - 1913 2nd Balkan War Greece, Serb, Romania, Turkey v. Bulg (frmr win)
    - 1914-8 WWI
    - 1917 Russian Revolution (after Germany sends Lenin to Russia as 'weapon'), US enters WWI
    - 1918 Walter Rauschenbusch dies (b1861 57yo), ldr of 'Social Gospel movement, Oswald Spengler's 1918-22 'Decline of the West', T S Eliot's 1922 'The Waste Land'
    - cf Clifford for later events

    Pat Buchanan (cf br-rne) says Wm McKinley's decision in 1898 (goaded by his War cabinet under-Sec'y TR) to pursue an imperialistic war against Spain caused America to 'jump the tracks' of our historic foreign policy. He lists our 7 foreign policy principles as:

    1) Exceptionalism [John Winthrop's 'shining city on a hill']
    2) Unilateralism [Washington's 'great rule' of no permanent ('entangling') alliances]
    3) The Monroe Doctrine [W hemisphere is America's sphere, other powers stay out!]
    4) Manifest Destiny [to eventually occupy the whole N American continent]

    ... Here's where we jumped the tracks! ...

    "Seward was a transitional figure ... like the [c1900] American imperialists, would accept the burden of ruling alien peoples. [But] It was under Wm McKinley, TR, and WW that we would eat the forbidden fruit of imperialism and go out into the world in search of monsters to destroy - leading to America's involvement in all the great wars of the 20C" (141).

    5) Progressive Imperialism, associated with McKinley, TR, and Henry Cabot Lodge, broke w/the vision of [Washington's] Farewell Address and raised Manifest Destiny to a new level. America's destiny now entailed overseas annexations and dominations of other peoples. The British Empire was no longer our great antagonist, but an exemplar in advancing the hegemony of the Anglo-Saxon race and civilization" (178-9).

    6) Liberal Internationalism, in Wilson's 14 Points, we see his vision ... through the global expansion of free trade, democracy, and disarmament, the way would open up to global governance and universal peace. His ideas are traceable to the classical liberals of the 19C [i.e. Cobden, Bright, hmmm]. Wilson parted w/TR and Lodge in his globalist, rather than nationalist, perspective; his willingness to subordinate US sovereignty to multilateral institutions; and his distaste for 'balance of power' politics" (184).

    FDR's Crusading Globalism was a continuation of Wilsonism; "In 1917 Wilson had gone to war to make the world safe for democracy [liberal internationalism], and had made the world safe for Lenin, Mussolini, and Hitler. In 1941 FDR had gone to war to make Europe and Asia safe for democracy, and had made Europe safe for Stalinism and Asia safe for Maoism" (297).

    7) Containment, advocated by George Kennan in his famous 1947 "Mr. X" article in Foreign Affairs magazine as an expedient for countering the USSR. "With the end of the Cold War, however, foreign policy went to probate, and by 1999 3 rival schools were claimants" (355): 1) Global Democracy as Panacea [Dems], 2) The Hegemonist Temptation [Bush 43, neocons], and 3) Enlightened Nationalism [Pat's view]. The latter is winning "by default ... [tho] only marginally represented in the foreign policy debate ... [it] alone can unite America - because [all] will agree there are bottom-line vital [national] interests that must be defended to the death; and the more narrow the definition, the greater the willingness to stand together and fight" (364).

    His point is that there remains cognitive dissonance, still unresolved as the post-WWII "twilight struggle" continues.

    See also br-4mc



    Sources:
    - Dear Folks
    - HT BN = History's Timeline, Barnes & Noble, 1981, own.
    - CHME = Christian History Made Easy, Dr Timothy Paul Jones, Rose, 2005, own.