Background
Philetus was born on September 22, 1816 at Whiting, near Rutland, Vermont, United States, but passed his youth at Crown Point, New York, to which place his parents, Ephraim and Mary (Potts) Sawyer, took him in infancy.
Philetus was born on September 22, 1816 at Whiting, near Rutland, Vermont, United States, but passed his youth at Crown Point, New York, to which place his parents, Ephraim and Mary (Potts) Sawyer, took him in infancy.
Sawyer acquired the rudiments of letters in a few terms of country schools, learned the whole technique of the lumberman in the pineries.
In 1847 Philetus took his family westward to the vicinity of Oshkosh, Wis. , where his home and seat of operations remained until his death. He was a member of the Wisconsin assembly in 1857 and 1861, was twice mayor of Oshkosh, and attached himself to various Masonic orders.
His family mansion, built in the panic year, 1857, became a place of hospitality state-wide in extent; and his fortune, considerable before the Civil War, expanded with the war-time demand for lumber. As his industry evolved from the sawmill and rough-lumber stage to the planing mill and finished woodwork, he amassed profits that he invested in the local banks and the railroads of Wisconsin.
In 1864 he was elected to Congress, thus accomplishing the "redemption" of the fifth Wisconsin district from the hands of the false Democracy. With "great energy and practical business talent" he held his seat against only nominal opposition through five terms.
Withdrawing from Congress in 1875, he gave his attention again to his business, but did not cease to work in politics with the "Republican regency of Milwaukee. " In 1881 he took his seat in the United States Senate. In 1885 he received as junior colleague the able young railroad lawyer, John C. Spooner, who became as effective on the floor as Sawyer was in the committee room.
Sawyer was replaced by a Democrat in 1893, after he had been compelled by the Democratic administration to make good on the bonds of sundry Republican state treasurers who had, while in office, failed to account for interest received on public deposits. He had also been drawn into significant controversy with the young ex-congressman, Robert M. La Follette, who charged him with an attempt at bribery in connection with the treasury interest cases. His explanation of the transaction was incapable of either authentication or disproof, but it provided the text for a campaign against boss rule and corruption waged by La Follette with ultimate success.
Sawyer retired to semi-privacy as the "grand old man of Oshkosh, " but his hand remained powerful when, after the Democratic interlude, his friends regained power in the state.
He died in Oshkosh.
In 1841 Sawyer married Melvina M. Hadley, the daughter of a neighbor. He survived by two of his five children.