I have a sawyer in the family. That’s right – a sawyer. Not, as I previously and erroneously thought, a lawyer.
A week and a half ago I posted “Census Sunday: Census raises
questions concerning George Van Horn.” The
responses I received via personal messages and Facebook made me realize the
first letter is clearly a S and that makes so much more sense. George Van Horn
was a sawyer in the 1850 Census in Philadelphia .
Ten years later he appears in Chester
County as a farmer. I
never could understand how one went from a lawyer to a farmer. This makes
sense.
So what is a sawyer?
A sawyer is defined as “one who sawed trees or wood by hand
at a lumber mill or at a lumbering operation.”
Source:
McCutcheon, Marc. “Everyday Life in the 1800s”
Merriam-Webster. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sawyer.
Last accessed online 10 December 2014.
Workday Wednesday is a genealogical prompt of GeneaBloggers.
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