Though a major commercial corridor today, Connecticut Avenue
north of Dupont Circle and the Circle itself was originally developed as a
fashionable residential neighborhood beginning in the early 1880s. The large triangular lot at the intersection
of Connecticut Avenue, R Street and 20th Streets is today occupied by a
distinctive triangular building built in 1922, housing the La Tomate
Restaurant at 1701 Connecticut Avenue Before that, however, it was
the site of a spectacular brown stone mansion built by Senator Philetus Sawyer
in 1888.
Philetus Sawyer
(1816 – 1900), right, was an American politician of the Republican Party who had the
unique title of representing Wisconsin in both houses of Congress. He was born on September 22, 1816 in Whiting,
Vermont, and moved to Crown Point, New York, as an infant in 1817. He was the fifth child of Ephraim Sawyer and
Mary Parks, and eventually attended rural schools there, worked as a woodsman
and sawmill hand, and for a time operated a lumbermill. In 1841, he married Malvina M. Hadley, and
they would eventually have five children together: Ella, Earl, Edgar, Emma, and
Erma.
He moved to Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin in 1847 and soon
thereafter became a millionaire in the lumber industry in Oshkosh, surrounded
by thick forests of old growth. Oshkosh
became known as “Sawdust City,” and her sister cities on the Lake Winnebago-Fox
River waterway soon became the center of early lumber milling and commerce. One
of his best customers would eventually be the Diamond match company.
Amusingly, his competitors in the lumber industry spread the
rumor that he always signed his letters and documents P. Sawyer because he himself could not spell his first name. Later in life, he seemingly changed his habit
and signed his full name as if to prove his enemies wrong. Sawyer amassed a fortune, which during the
Civil War became even larger as his industry evolved from the sawmill and
rough-hewn lumber stage to planing mill and finished woodwork.
In 1878, Sawyer formed a lumber company with his son, Edgar
P. and a former employee named William O. Goodman named Sawyer-Goodman &
Co. that expanded operations into Illinios, Iowa, and Nebraska. They owned yards
in Chicago and mills in the Menominee Valley, and were successful speculators
in the Wolf and Chippewa valley timberlands, along with large investments in
Wisconsin banking and railroad enterprises.
Sawyer’s daughter Erna eventually married Goodman.
Sawyer's early political career included serving in the
Wisconsin State Assembly in 1857 and 1861, and serving as mayor of Oshkosh,
Wisconsin, from 1863 to 1864. He ran for
and was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1864 and
served for ten years, from 1865 until 1875; he did not run for reelection in
1874. He gained a reputation as being
the “foremost logroller” of his time through his handling of river and harbor
appropriation bills.
Sawyer apparently had strong feelings about his time in
public life, writing in 1875 “As for me being a Candidate for Govr. or any other
office I most emphaticaly decline. I will not except the the
nomination for Any Office…I have kissed a--s enough for the privlage of doing
peoples Chores and I have got through." (Stated in a letter to Cadwallader C. Washburn, dated April
2, 1875, in the Washburn Papers, collection of the State Historical
Society of Wisconsin)
However, Sawyer returned to Congress in 1881 as a U.S.
Senator from Wisconsin, and served two terms, from 1881 to 1893. The US Senate was then a wealthy men’s club,
whose members didn’t represent political entities so much as they represented
economic empires. From Nevada, for
example, then hailed James G. Fair, known as “Bonanza Fair,” the wealthiest of
them all; he had accumulated a fortune of thirty millions from silver mines.
Sawyer’s stone mansion at 1701 Connecticut Avenue had begun
to be constructed in March of 1888, and while he himself resided there, it was
apparently built for his daughter Emma, then the wife of Syracuse, NY
journalist Howard White. The mansion was
designed by architect William H. Miller and was built at an impressive estimated
cost of $80,000, when the typical townhouse in Washington was built for less
than $3,000. It was built by William P.
Lipscomb, who lost money on the elaborate construction, but Sawyer was so
pleased with the house that he offered to pay beyond the contract price for the
house.
In 1891, as bondsman for two of the defendants in a Wisconsin
treasury legal case, Sawyer offered money to Robert M. La Follette, Sr.,
brother-in-law of the judge scheduled to try the cases; La Follette denounced
the offer as an intended bribe, while Sawyer maintained that his offer had been
made only in the hope of obtaining La Follette’s legal services. The resulting scandal split the state
Republican party, and, after leaving the Senate in 1893, Sawyer spent his last
years fighting the ensuing revolt of the La Follette, or Progressive, faction
of the party which gained control shortly thereafter.
Sawyer sold 1701 Connecticut Avenue just two weeks before he
died in March of 1900 for the stunning amount of $100,000. Its new owner was Henry Cleveland Perkins, a
wealthy mining engineer and owner of the Oriental Consolidated Mining Company
that owned mines in California, Alaska, Venezuela, Korea, and South
Africa.
 |
| Sawyer's house in Oshkosh, Wisconsin |
Known as the “grand old man” of Oshkosh, in his later years,
Sawyer performed various local philanthropic acts, many of them anonymous, and
was a trustee and generous benefactor of Lawrence College. Sawyer died on March 29, 1900 in Oshkosh at
age 83, where he was also interred. Sawyer
County, Wisconsin, was named for him, and a book of his life entitled Pine
Logs and Politics: A Life of Philetus Sawyer, 1816- 1900 was written by Richard Nelson Current,
published by the Wisconsin State Historical Society in 1950.
Sadly, the Sawyer mansion was sold in 1921 and demolished
after existing on the intersection of Connecticut Avenue and 20th
Street for thirty-three years. Architect
George N. Ray designed the current building at 1701 Connecticut Avenue, which
was begun in May of 1923. Ironically, it too was built by the William
Lipscomb company that had build Sawyers house on the site in 1888. It was
built as an office building, but subsequently housed the Regina Valet and today
is home to the La Tomate restaurant.
Copyright Paul K. Williams
