F-5-3
Benjamin and Tabitha Sawyer
Benjamin Sawyer was born in Amherst, New Hampshire in 1758 to Josiah and Hannah Sawyer. He married Tabitha Kitteridge of Tewksbury, Massachusetts in 1778 when he was twenty and his wife a year younger. Their first child, Benjamin, was born in Amherst in 1779. That year they bought 104 acres on the western side of Rollstone Mountain from Benjamin’s father and moved their child, two horses, bed, teakettle and other possessions on horseback to Packersfield. The Sawyers had 14 children with all but two reaching adulthood. In 1810 the Sawyers farm had grown to over 200 acres. That year they sold a half interest in the place to their son, Joel, in return for provisions for their care for the balance of their lives. Joel, his wife, Susannah, and their three young children lived with his parents on the place. The elder Sawyers probably still had three children there, too.
In 1816 Joel bought the neighboring Solomon Ingalls farm and moved there. Benjamin and Tabitha probably joined them a few years later and the place was abandoned.
