He was a lawyer in full practice, a man of the highest integrity, without fear and without reproach.

Born in the Western Reserve, he was radical in his views touching the slavery question and progressive in all matters of governmental reform .-- Philetus Sawyer was a native of Vermont, who, when a young man, had emigrated to Wisconsin.

Without early advantages, either of education or fortune, he was in the best sense of the phrase a self-made man.

He engaged in the business of lumbering and by sagacity had acquired wealth.

It is easy to supply superlatives in eulogy of popular favorites; but Mr.Sawyer, in modest phrase, deserves to be ranked among the best of men,--honest, industrious, generous, true to every tie and to every obligation of life.