admin JAMES DENISON SAWYER, father of George P. Sawyer, was one of the founders of the industrial and commercial Buffalo of today. He served with ability in the Common Council, was among the original organizers of some of Buffalo’s most important institutions of education and benevolence, and took an active part in the church and social interests of his day.
Mr. Sawyer’s earlier prominence was attained as a grain merchant. In this capacity he became intimately connected with the storage and transportation interests of the community. He was a trustee and one of the founders of the National Savings Bank, in 1867, President of White’s Bank, Vice President of the Mutual Gas Light Company, and Vice-President of the Western Insurance Company. He was one of the founders of the Buffalo Historical Society, one of the organizers of the Young Men’s Association, President of the Buffalo General Hospital, and trustee of Forest Lawn Cemetery. He was a member of the First Presbyterian Church up to 1868, when he became a member of the Westminster Presbyterian Church. Of the latter church Mr. Sawyer was an elder till the time of his death.
In 1864-5 Mr. Sawyer was a member of the Common Council from the Ninth Ward.
Mr. Sawyer died in 1881. His surviving children are: Elizabeth Field Sawyer, who married George W. Parkhurst (deceased) of Buffalo; George Pliny Sawyer; James, who died in infancy; Ida O., who died in 1888, and William Babcock Sawyer, who died in 1880.
James Denison Sawyer was a man of the highest character. Upright in all his relations, business and social, no one in the history of Buffalo ever enjoyed in a greater degree the confidence of the community.
SOURCE: Memorial and Family History of Erie County New York; Volume I