A tree-trunk in a river bed, which oscillates with the current: see quotations 1833, 1838.
1801. Mr. Beall and some others got on a sawyer, but a second tree falling drove them all under water.—Mass. Spy, July 29.
1817. See PLANTER.
1822.
| And ev’ry breath the farmer drew, | |
| His last two snags convulsive heave | |
| Like Mississippi sawyers weave. | |
Missouri Intelligencer, Oct. 1. |
1826. Sometimes you are impeded by vast masses of trees, that have lodged against sawyers.—T. Flint, ‘Recollections,’ p. 91.
1829. [Another man] had got upon the end of a snag or “sawyer.”—Mass. Spy, April 1.
1833. In the middle of the river was a large sawyer, an immense log, the entire trunk of a majestic oak, whose roots clung to the bottom, while the other end, extending down the stream, rose to the surface, the current giving it a heavy and eternal motion.—James Hall, ‘Legends of the West,’ p. 139 (Phila.). (Italics in the original.)
1833. More than once he lost both boat and cargo by running on the snags and sawyers of the Mississippi.—Id., p. 153.
1838. Sometimes, too, a huge sawyer, clinging upon the verge of the channel, heaves up its black mass above the surface, then falls, and again rises with the rush of the current.—E. Flagg, ‘The Far West,’ i. 65 (N.Y.).
1840. Boats frequently pass over these ‘sawyers,’ as they go down stream, pressing them under by their weight.—Knick. Mag., xvi. 462 (Dec.).
1844. “It takes a man, stranger,” said a Mississippi fireman, “to ride one of these here aligator boats head on to a sawyer, high pressure and the valve soldered down.”—Phila. Spirit of the Times, Sept. 10.
1846. There ain’t a dry rag among us, and the straw ’s as wet as Massissippi sawyers.—Knick. Mag., xxviii. 313 (Oct.).
1847. I seized Molly as she came floatin’ towards me, and stuck her upon my sawyer, while I started for an adjinin’ snag.—Robb, ‘Streaks of Squatter Life,’ &c., p. 110 (Phila.).
1851. And then there are the poor trees, twisting and twirling and tossing about in the rapid stream (sometimes roots uppermost), which form the dreaded “snags” and “sawyers” of the Mississippi voyagers.—Lady E. S. Wortley, ‘Travels in the U.S.,’ p. 114 (N.Y.).
1857. [The wire workers and schemers] will fetch up agin a snag or a sawyer one of these days.—San Francisco Call, Feb. 17.
