Wesley Caleb Sawyer was only at the University of Minnesota for two years, from the fall of 1872 to the end of the 1873-74 academic year. However, Sawyer apparently had a knack for taking leading roles in the communities he joined. Almost immediately after his arrival, Sawyer teamed up with Winchell and Mitchell Davison Rhame to purchase land near the campus to build homes. He also became secretary of The Citizen Publishing Company, whose president was John Sargeant Pillsbury, and was an advocate for civil service reform.
Sawyer was born in Harvard, Worchester County, Massachusetts on August 26, 1839, the son of Luke Sawyer, a Harvard farmer, and Mercy Blood Whitcomb of Maine. Tragedy haunted Sawyer’s early life. At age three, Sawyer lost both his sisters within two weeks of one another. At nine, Sawyer’s mother died two weeks after the birth of his fourth brother and then two of his brothers died within a week of his mother, leaving Sawyer with only his father and two brothers. Another brother died five years later when Sawyer was sixteen.
Wesley Caleb Sawyer, Harvard class of 1861 yearbook portrait.
Sawyer studied at Wilbraham Academy and graduated from Harvard College in 1861, earning a Bowdoin prize for his dissertation. Graduating just after the start of the Civil War, Sawyer raised Company H of the Twenty-third Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, serving as the company’s captain. With only two children left, Sawyer’s father undoubtedly had misgivings about his sons’ decisions to join the Union forces. Although his older son survived unscathed, Wesley almost died during his first campaign. Sawyer was part of General Burnside’s North Carolina expedition and fought at Roanoke Island. His company then moved up the Neuse River to engage in the battle of New Berne. There, on March 14, 1862, a cannon shot took off most of Sawyer’s left leg. The remnant was amputated in the field and buried. Sawyer’s men noted the spot where the unexploded canister that claimed Sawyer’s leg landed and dug it up. Sawyer kept the cannister until his death, using it as a match safe in the days before safety matches were developed.
The Battle of New Bern, North Carolina - 1862
Record of Sawyer's Injury and example of a Palmer Artificial Leg (National Museum of Health and Medicine)
Sawyer took a post-graduate course at Harvard studying Hebrew and attended its Theological Seminary. He graduated in 1865 and began preaching in Maplewood, Massachusetts. He spent the next five years studying in Europe, beginning with the University of Berlin, and the Sorbonne in Paris, before earning a Ph.D. from the University of Göttingen in 1870. Although that later accomplishment is challenged by some as Sawyer is not in Göttingen’s records. At the time it was common for Americans to claim fraudulent doctorates from European institutions, but to do so seems out of character considering Sawyer’s ambitions lay as much in the ministry as academia. In 1882, the Appleton Post instead claimed Sawyer’s Ph.D. came from Berlin rather than Göttingen.
Upon returning to the States, Sawyer taught Greek at Lasell Seminary in Auburndale, Massachusetts for a year before coming to the University of Minnesota where he taught German and history at a salary of $1,400. In December of 1873, Sawyer was appointed assistant professor, but he said he would not continue his connection with the university unless he was appointed full professor. Hence, he declined the assistant professorship.
Wesley Caleb Sawyer
Sawyer left the university to accept the position of professor of Intellectual Philosophy and Rhetoric at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin in July of 1875. There he also taught German and served as university librarian. On July 1, 1877, Sawyer married a student in the school, Minnie Edmea Birge of Horicon, Wisconsin. She would graduate the following year as class valedictorian, and the couple would eventually have four children.
Main Hall of Lawrence University (Wikipedia) and Minnie Edmea Birge's student photo.
In 1882, the regents of Lawrence University abruptly terminated Sawyer’s position for undeclared reasons. However, two years earlier, Sawyer had discovered $4,000 from the Library Funds had been used to pay for steam heating of the main hall, which did not endear him to the trustees. Later, Sawyer challenged the new president over the purchase of hymnals for the chapel out of library funds. His willingness to challenge misappropriations apparently earned Sawyer the enmity of the president and trustees. On June 28, 1882, the university’s board recommended his dismissal claiming fiscal concerns:
‘In view of that fact that the income of the college for the coming year is likely to fall short of the amount of the expense of running the same to the amount of $2,000, more or less, it is hereby recommended … that salaries be the same as last year … And that Prof. Sawyer be relieved of his Professorship and that studies over which he had charge the past year be distributed between the other members of the faculty.’
Sawyer was a popular teacher, and his dismissal was protested by students, alumni, and even local newspapers, but it was not reversed. Yet, Sawyer apparently held no long-term animus about his dismissal and according to their children, Wesley and Minnie always remembered their time in Lawrence with affection. Even as late as 1925, Sawyer’s widow continued to donate to the college’s endowment.
After leaving Lawrence, Sawyer became professor of English Literature in the Normal School at Oshkosh, Wisconsin. He later served as that institute’s director and professor of social science until 1885. Sawyer moved his family to Europe for the next three years while undertaking graduate work at Dresden University and writing a ‘Complete German Manual’ textbook that would be widely used in the United States.
East Hall of the University of the Pacific in San Jose in 1888
Returning in 1888, Sawyer moved to California and spent seven years at the University of the Pacific at San Jose. Beginning as professor of political economy, he soon became dean and vice-president of the College of Liberal Arts, and later acting president. From 1895 to 1898, Sawyer was master in French and German at the newly opened Belmont School for Boys and then spent three years in Berkeley with his family. In 1901, Sawyer returned to the University of the Pacific as lecturer on Teutonic mythology and later as professor of German and French until 1908. His wife, Minnie, also taught German at the college from 1903 until 1911 and took charge of the department after her husband’s retirement in 1908. Two years prior to his retirement, Sawyer underwent a second amputation of his leg near the thigh yet returned to teach his classes. After retirement, Sawyer published a book on Teutonic Legends. After twelve years as an invalid, Sawyer died on January 25, 1921 (age 81) in San Jose, California where he was buried.
Return to Charlotte Winchell Cottage
Any concerns or suggestions?
email: Kent Kirkby ([email protected])