SAWYER, Thomas Jefferson, clergyman, born in Reading, Vermont, 9 January, 1804. He was graduated at Middleburv in 1829, and in 1830-'45 was pastor of a Universalist church in New York city, where he also edited the "Christian Messenger" in 1831-'45. In the latter year he became principal of Clinton liberal institute, Oneida county, where he also taught theology. In 1852 he returned to his charge in New York, but in 1861 he retired to a farm at Clinton, where he lived in retirement, declining the presidencies of St. Lawrence university, Canton, New York, Lombard university, Illinois, and Tufts college, Massachusetts, which he had been instrumental in founding in 1852. He was also active in establishing the theological school of St. Lawrence university in 1856. In 1863-'6 he edited the "Christian Ambassador," and he then resided on a farm in New Jersey till 1869, when he became professor of theology in Tufts. Professor Sawyer has defended the doctrines of Universalism in the press, and in public discussions with clergymen of other denominations, Harvard gave him the degree of D.D. in 1850, and he is a member of the Theological historical society of Leipsic. Besides contributions to denominational literature, he has published in book-form " Letters to Reverend Stephen Remington in Review of his "Lectures on Universalism" (New York, 1839); "Review of Reverend E. F. Halfield's 'Universalism as it Is'" (1843); "Endless Punishment," and other discourses (1845); "Memoirs of Reverend Stephen R. Smith" (Boston, 1852); discussions with Reverend Isaac Westcott on "The Doctrine of Endless Misery" (New York, 1853) and "The Doctrine of Universal Salvation" (18541); "Who is Our God, the Son or the Father?" opposing the views of Henry Ward Beecher (1859); and "Endless Punishment in the Very Words of its Advocates" (Boston, 1880).--His wife, Caroline Mehetabel (FISHER), author, born in Newton, Massachusetts, 8 December, 1812, was educated principally at home by an invalid uncle, and began to write at an early age, but published nothing till her marriage to Dr. Sawyer in September, 1831, when she removed with him to New York, and began to contribute in prose and verse to the magazines. She edited the "Ladies' Repository," a Universalist monthly, from 1861 till 1864, and published the "Juvenile Library" (4 vols., New York, 1845); "The Poetry of Hebrew Tradition" (Hartford, 1847) ; the "Poems" of Mrs. Julia II. Scott, with a memoir (Boston, 1854); "Friedel," from the German of Van Horn (Philadelphia, 1856); and "The Rose of Sharon," an annual (8 vols., 1850-'8).