Leroy E. Sawin

LEROY E. SAWIN. For a young man Leroy E. Sawin has come into large prominence and responsibility in Washington County, where he is now filling the office of county clerk. To this office Mr. Sawin brought qualifications and ability far in advance of his years. He is one of the local men entrusted with the grave responsibility of raising the local quota for the National American Army. He was a member of the registration board of the county and was on the exemption board until removed on account of draft age, sharing that responsibility with Dr. Henry D. Smith and Sheriff D. W. McLeod.

Mr. Sawin represents an old family in this section of Kansas and both his father and grandfather are still living here. Leroy was born at Home City in Marshall County, May 17, 1890. His ancestors, the Sawins, were Scotch-Irish people and immigrated from islands near England to New York State in pioneer times. Mr. Sawin's grandfather was Cassius Marcellus Sawin, who was born in New York State and for a number of years lived near Cleveland, Ohio, where he was a coal miner and business man. In about 1865 he brought his family to Kansas, homesteading 160 acres in Washington County six miles south of Greenleaf. That was his home for a number of years and he later bought a farm north of Waterville in Marshall County, and since selling that has lived retired in Waterville.

Frank H. Sawin, father of the county clerk, was born in October, 1865, at Cleveland, Ohio, and a few weeks later was brought by his parents to Washington County, Kansas, where he grew up and where he has spent practically his entire life except for a few years prior to and after his marriage, when his home was in Marshall County. He is now living on his farm fourteen miles southwest of Washington in Strawberry Township. Farming and the trade of carpenter have constituted his chief activities in a business way. He has served on the school board of Strawberry Township twenty years and is township clerk. He is an active supporter of the Evangelical Association Church, is a republican, is acting past noble grand of Throop Lodge No. 516, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and past venerable consul of Throop Camp No. 5083, Modern Woodmen of America. Mr. Frank Sawin married Esther Elizabeth Albright, who was born near Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in April, 1865. Of their children Leroy is the oldest. Mabel Elizabeth is the wife of M. N. Johnson, a farmer near Thayer in Neosho County, Kansas. Harry Lincoln is a farmer in Coleman Township of Washington County. Clara May and Clarence William are still at home, the former a student in the Washington High School and the latter in the public schools of Throop.

Leroy E. Sawin attended the public schools of Throop for eleven terms, and on leaving school at the age of eighteen spent two years at the carpenter's trade, lived in California during the winter of 1910-11 and returned to Kansas to take a course in the Lawrence Business College. In January, 1913, he became deputy county clerk and was thoroughly familiar with all the duties of that office when he was elected chief of the office in the fall of 1916 and began his official term in January of the next year.

Mr. Sawin is a republican, is trustee and financial secretary of the First Presbyterian Church of Washington, is past noble grand of Washington Lodge No 76, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and a member of the Rebekahs, is past venerable consul of Throop Camp No. 5083, Modern Woodmen of America, and belongs to the Masonic order and the Royal Neighbors. June 21, 1916, at Washington, he married Miss Katherine Moore Stewart, daughter of John W. and Maggie (Roberts) Stewart. Her parents live in Coleman Township of Washington County.

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