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Peter Flood Collection
Biography
Northfield
WILLIAM J. SAWIN
Was born in Princeton, Mass., and came from Hancock, N.H. to Northfield in 1835. He married Sarah Swett, and they had one son: William J., b 1833.
Mr. Sawin died in 1842, and Mrs. Swan married John G. Crawford, and they had three children :
Helen E, b 1843; George L., b 1845; Sarah T., b 1849.
Mr. Crawford died in 1868.
Dr. William J. Sawin, son of Levi S., studied medicine with Dr. Claggett, and graduated at Dartmouth College in 1854. He began the practice of his profession in Watertown, Wis., in the same year, where he remained until 1861, removing to Chicopee Falls, Mass., in March of the same year. In the following June he enlisted as a private soldier, and in September was transferred to the third Vermont Regiment, as Hospital Steward; served as physician in the third, fourth and fifth Vermont regiments from October, 1861, to June, 1862; promoted to Surgeon in second Vermont brigade in 1862, and to Surgeon-in-Chief of Brigade in 1862; was discharged with the tenth Massachusetts regiment at the expiration of his term of service in 1864, and returned to Chicopee Falls, to spend the remainder of his life.
On the evening of December 3, 1875, in the Asylum of Springfield Commandery of Knights Templars, while in the act of clothing himself in the regalia of his office, preparatory to being installed as Eminent Commander of that body, and in the presence of a large number of his brethren, William J. Sawin, and honored Past Grand Warden of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, was stricken down by apoplexy and died instantly. In the full vigor and power of manhood, and in the midst of his earthly activities and usefulness, he was called to a higher life.
Source: John Gregory, Northfield's First Century: Centennial Proceedings and Historical Incidents Of the Early Settlers of Northfield, VT., with Biographical Sketches of Prominent Businessmen Who have been and are now residents of the town, (Argus and Patriot Book and Job Printing House, Montpelier, Vt., 1878), p. 219.