The History of the Yakima Valley, Washington, Comprising Yakima, Kittitas and
Benton Counties, The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1919, Volume II, page 40
A portrait of William P. Sawyer appears in this publication.

WILLIAM PERRY SAWYER.

William Perry Sawyer is the owner of Elmwood Farm, an attractive ranch that
occupies historic ground near Sawyer Station, in the center of the Parker
bottoms district. He has an attractive residence, built of stone to the second
story and then of wood. It stands on a hill overlooking the road, commanding a
splendid view of the surrounding country, with the snowy caps of Mount Adams and
Mount Rainier dominating the landscape.

Mr. Sawyer comes to the west from Boston, Massachusetts, where his birth
occurred September 19, 1851. He is a son of Humphrey and Barbara (Perry) Sawyer,
natives of New Hampshire and of Boston, Massachusetts, respectively. His
ancestors were of the same family as Commodore Perry and both the Sawyer and
Perry families have been represented in America from early colonial times. The
father. Humphrey Sawyer, on leaving Massachusetts, settled in Alden, Wisconsin,
about 1856. There he engaged in farming but later conducted a hardware business
at Stillwater, Minnesota, where he located in 1870.

In his boyhood days William Perry Sawyer obtained a public school education.
After the removal of the family to Stillwater, Minnesota, he entered the
hardware business, in which he continued for many years, or until 1889.
Eventually he came to Yakima and purchased the business of the A. B. Weed
Hardware Company, conducting his store as senior partner of the firm of Sawyer &
Pennington until 1892. He then withdrew from commercial connections and
purchased two hundred and twenty acres of land on Parker bottoms. At that time
he raised some hops but now has seventy-five acres in fruit trees, mostly apples
and pears. He has his own warehouse and packing house and all of the equipment
necessary for the care of the trees and of the fruit. He built upon the place
one of the finest homes in Yakima county, completed in 1911. Near-by stands a
little log cabin built in 1864 by J. P. Mattoon, who homesteaded the land upon
which Mr. Sawyer now resides. Just back of the house was an old Catholic
mission, which was used for three or four years until the new one was built on
the Ahtanum, and thus from the days of early settlement in this section of the
state the ranch has been used for the purposes of civilization.

On the 9th of October, 1883, Mr. Sawyer was married to Miss Alice M, Brown, who
was born in Iowa in 1858, a daughter of John and Maria (Grant) Brown, who were
natives of England and became residents of Iowa in 1854. The father was a very
prominent farmer of Iowa, devoting his attention to the raising of grain and
stock. In 1873 he and his family returned to England, where they spent two
years, but the lure of the new world was upon them and they again became
residents of Iowa, where both passed away. Mr. and Mrs. Sawyer became the
parents of six children, but the first-born, Linley, died in infancy. Beulah,
the second of the family, became the wife of Herman Holmquist, a rancher on
Parker Heights. John Edwin, of the United States Marines, enlisted on the second
day after war was declared and went to France in February, 1918. He has been
through all the active fighting, was badly gassed and was in a hospital for
several weeks but is now again on active duty with the army of occupation, his
record being one of which his parents have every reason to be proud. Harriet
Marie, the next of the family, is the wife of Earl Cheney, of Shosone, Idaho,
and they have three children. Horace died in infancy. Shirley Emma, who
completes the family, is in school.

Mr. Sawyer is a member of Yakima Lodge, No. 24, A. F. & A. M., and served on the
board that built the Masonic Temple of Yakima, being the one who planned the
building and supervised its erection. With the exception of the United States
government building in the city of Yakima, it is today the best building in the
Yakima valley. In tact it is the finest Masonic Temple on the Pacific coast,
being a reproduction of the inner chamber of King Solomon's Temple and the only
one extant. The keystone in the arch over the entrance to the elevator lobby was
taken from the ancient quarries of Jerusalem, from which the stone for King
Solomon's Temple is also supposed to have been secured. This building cost two
hundred thousand dollars. Mr. Sawyer also was one of the trustees who built the
Yakima Street Railway and no doubt did more than any other man toward giving
Yakima its present street car system. His religious faith is that of the
Universalist church, while his wife has membership in the Episcopal church. In
politics he is a republican and is now serving for the third term as a member of
the state legislature, his reelection being indicative of his personal
popularity and the confidence reposed in him by his fellow townsmen as well as
of the excellent record which he has made in legislative service. He is one of
the most prominent men of the valley, an active champion of the good roads
movement, of educational interests and of all things affecting the public
welfare. He has maintained in his life an even balance between private business
interests and matters of public concern, his ready support of every public
interest constituting an element in the county's progress and upbuilding.

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Submitted to the Washington Bios Project in December 2007 by Jeffrey L. Elmer.
Submitter has no additional information about the subject of this article.