Lemuel Sawyer

Who was Lemuel Sawyer?

Lemuel Sawyer was a Congressional Representative from North Carolina.

Sawyer was born in Camden County, near Elizabeth City, North Carolina. He attended Flatbush Academy, Long Island, New York, and was graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1799. He attended the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia for a time. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1804 and commenced practice in Elizabeth City, North Carolina.

Sawyer was a member of the State House of Commons in 1800 and 1801. He was elected to the Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Congresses as a Democratic-Republican, and the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth as a Jacksonian. He ran unsuccessfully in 1822 for the Eighteenth Congress. Sawyer was elected to the Nineteenth and Twentieth Congresses, but was an not reelected in 1828 to the Twenty-first Congress. He was department clerk in Washington, D.C., until his death in that city.

He was interred in the family burying ground at Lambs Ferry, Camden County, North Carolina, about 4 miles from Elizabeth City, North Carolina.