Samuel Tredwell Sawyer

Who was Samuel Tredwell Sawyer?

Samuel Tredwell Sawyer was a Congressional Representative from the U.S. state of North Carolina.

Sawyer was born in Edenton, North Carolina, in 1800. He attended Edenton Academy and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Sawyer studied law, was admitted to the bar, and commenced practice in Edenton. Sawyer was a member of the North Carolina State house of representatives 1829-1832. He had two children with Harriet Jacobs, author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Sawyer served in the state senate in 1834. He was elected as a Whig to the Twenty-fifth Congress and was chairman of the Committee on Expenditures on Public Buildings. Sawyer was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection to the Twenty-sixth Congress, moved to Norfolk, Virginia, and resumed the practice of law. He was editor of the Norfolk Argus for several years. He was appointed collector of customs at Norfolk on May 16, 1853, serving until April 6, 1858. Sawyer then moved to Washington, D.C.. During the Civil War, he was appointed on September 17, 1861, as commissary with the rank of major in the Confederate service and served until August 2, 1862. Sawyer died in Bloomfield, New Jersey in 1865.