Alfred Sawyer

As an example of wholesome country living and of New England character at its best, Jaffrey can offer no finer than Alfred Sawyer, a farmer and citizen of the highest type and model town officer. He was born in Sharon, New Hampshire, near the Jaffrey border, August 12, 1831. His parents moved across the line into Jaffrey when he was four years old. He was educated in district school No. 1, with a finishing course at Melville Academy at Jaffrey Center, "an institution of learning for young ladies and gentlemen." After the custom of the times he worked for his father until he became of age, without compensation. Upon gaining his independence he leased and soon after bought the Benjamin Haywood farm, adjoining that of his father, where he lived to the end of his life, never regretting the decision that made him a farmer. He was industrious and thrifty in the management of his own affairs, and he devoted the same qualities to the business of the town when he became a town officer. He served as selectman for eleven years, and as Overseer of the Poor, for which his knowledge of the people, his tact and judgment, gave him a peculiar fitness, he served with fairness and without complaint for twenty-five years. He represented the town in the State Legislature and on important town committes. He was trustee of the town trust funds, of Conant Cemetery, and the Clay Library, and was treasurer of the Library board for many years. He was justice of the peace for forty years and few men, if any, in the history of the town settled more estates than he. He was a trustee of the Monadnock Savings Bank and for nineteen years its president, holding the office to his ninety-ninth year, when he was supposed to be the oldest bank president in the United States.

He was square and upright in his dealings. He was happy in his manner of meeting people and won the respect of all who came in contact with him. He lived well and enjoyed the good things of life to the full, but was abstemious in his habits, never having used tobacco and, according to his own statement, he "never drank a glass of hard liquor" in his life. His autograph, which follows, was written in his ninety-eighth year.

Alfred Sawyer's Signature

He was not a man of robust physique, and his long life seems to have been the natural consequence of correct living according to nature's laws. On the last week of his life "he did not feel very well" and after three days in bed, without disease or actual illness, he went to his final rest on Saturday, May 24, 1930, in the ninety-ninth year of his age.