Remembering ISAAC SAWYER, SR

     Two hundred and forty- seven years ago, on this day, February 13th, in the year 1772, Isaac Sawyer, born to James Sawyer and Sarah Bray Sawyer of Cape Ann, Massachusetts on February 14, 1684, died, one day before his eighty-eighth birtday.  The journals of the Rev. Thomas Smith and Rev, Samuel Dean, Pastors of the First Church in Portland contain notice of his death, and a notation dated February 15, 1772, "I went to the funeral of Father Sawyer." Rev. Dean.

     This Isaac Sawyer is the progenitor of many of the living descendants who have contributed to the growth of the city we now called Portland, and, particularily, Theodore L.  Sawyer, whose wonderful manuscript has served as the foundation and inspiration for the work to recover the stories associated with those interred at the Presumpscot/East Deering/ Grand Trunk Cemetery.

     On or about 1725, Isaac Sawyer, Sr. arrived in old Casco, now named Falmouth, just seven years after Maj. Samuel Moody with his band of fifteen soldiers, their wives and children received permission from the General Court of Massachusetts to re-establish the colony that had been desimated by years of brutal war with the Indians and French.

The little meeting-house on the Point, where George Burroughs preached the word in its purity, where settlers on the shore of the bay had been wont to come in their boats,to hitch them on the beach, as they world their horses, had disappeared.

The church, the minister and the people had disappeared, and cellars with rude old chimneys were the principal memorials of a former village.  The people of New Casco came in a body to Old Casco, and restored its waste places.

William Goold:  Portland In The Past, pp. 168-169

       William Willis in his History of Portland lists these names of some who came with Maj. Moody and who received grants to establish themselves on the peninsula, Falmouth Neck: 

 James Doughty, John Gustin, Mark Rounds, Matthew and William Scales, Ebenezer Hall, Thomas Thomes, John Wass, James Mills, Joseph Bean,

 John Barbour, and son, James Barbour.

 The following map shows where they lived on the Neck as the first Proprietors of the new settlement.

     After the demolishing of Fort New Casco,the new settlement on the Neck became the business center,and with it the promise of prosperity for others seeking to settle in Maine from other parts of the Bay Colony.  Among these were the Sawyer brothers and Isaac Sawyer, Sr. who purchased the Skillings farm and other property from John Wass in 1726.

     I'd like to take a step back in time to look at some of these men, particularily John Wass and Ebenezer Hall and his sons who sold property to the families who built their lives on farms on Back Cove, near what we now call Lunt's Corner in the East Deering section of Portland and are closely associated with the history of the Presumpscot/Grand Trunk Cemetery.

     How John Wass came to be among the men who accompanied Maj. Moody when he commanded the fort at New Casco, I have not been able to learn.  Several thousand men from Boston were engaged in the military during the first Indian Wars.  Somehow, after 1714, Wass must have joined the militia.

An early census from 1714, indicates he lived Boston in Suffolk County and that he was a distiller and may have owned a tavern there.

     John Wass was born in Settrington, Yorkshire, England to Capt. Thomas Wass (1646-1723) and Alice Harrison (1649-1723) in 1671.  There is a record of a baptism for John Wass at the age of 1 year on March 16, 1672 from Ancestry files. He had five sisters, all born in Boston after 1672, when his parents migrated to New England.

     In 1711, he married Ann Wilmot (1671-1735), daughter of Richard Wilmot in Dorchester.  That same year, on February 9, 1711, the couples' only son Wilmot Wass (1711-1794) was born.

     

     John Wass was apparently well respected in the new settlement at Falmouth.  At the first meeting to organize the new town of Falmoth, held at Maj. Moody's home on March 12, 1719, the following were elected: (Willis, p.326)

Joshua Moody, Clerk, John Wass, William Scales, Dominicus Jordan, John Richard, Benjamin Skillings, Selectmen, Thomas Thomes, Constable, Jacob Collings and Samuel Proctor, Surveyors of Fence, William Scales, chosen Representative to the General Court. 

     According to William Willis and the early history of Cumberland County, John Wass retained the office of selectman for five years.  His home on the corner of Wilmot Street and Queen Street (Congress Street) was inherited from his father-in-law Richard Wilmot who died in Falmoth in 1735.  That section of Wilmot Street is now a parking lot.  Here is what remains today.

Wilmot Street took its name from the early occupant,
 Richard Wilmot

     As you know, dear reader from a previous post on this blog, John Wass purchased the Skillings grant from Edmund Clarke and his wife Elizabeth Skillings Clarke in 1719 and then sold it along with  his Wilmot Street property to Isaac Sawyer, Sr. in 1726.  I gather that sometime after this, John and his wife Ann returned to Boston where, it appears they owned a tavern called the "Golden Ball" situated near the town dock.  Ann Wilmot Wass died November 14, 1735, the same year as her father Richard.

     I found this in "The Crooked & Narrow Streets of Boston,(1630-1822) by Annie Haven Thwing:

     A bit more about Ann Wass, including some information about her final resting place.

     John Wass married a second wife, Elizabeth Slaughter in Boston, on December 27, 1736, but died himself, in August 1741, only five years later at the age of 70 years. His will reveals he was well off at the time of his death and more about his family.

     In 1733, Isaac Sawyer sold the property he purchsed from John Wass located on the Neck to Samuel Waldo, but he retained and added to the Skillings farm where he resided until his death.

     There is more to add to the story of Isaac Sawyer and his descendants, but it will have to wait.  Next post will be about the Halls who sold property to Joseph Noyes and Jasper Blake, other early inhabitants of Back Cove/East Deering.

     On a final note; I want to share exciting news.  In June, date to be decided soon, a wonderful gift from the City of Portland will be installed at the cemetery.  Through the artistry of Jack Vreeland an interpretive sign containing some key historical elements has been designed and will be placed at the cemetery for visitors to enjoy and to continue the mission to honor those early residents who are interred there.  The date, in June is closely associated to the Sawyer family and will be held either June 21st or June 22nd.  More about this soon.  Let us know your thoughts, please.  We would like to have those who can, to come to the unveiling.

     Here is a sneak peak!