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John, was born on 4 June 1738 at 58 Broad Street in New York City. He was the son of Esther Stillwell. He married Mary Bowes (his step sister), on 28 September 1758 at Christ Church in Philadelphia - from "Record of Pennsylvania Marriage Prior to 1810" Volume 1, by Clarence M. Busch, 1895.
From Banta:
He was educated at King's (now Columbia) College, N. Y., and became a clergyman of the Episcopal Church.
Rev. Rufus Emery, of Newburgh, N. Y., in an address delivered January 13, 1892, in Christ Church, Warwick, N. Y., thus speaks of Mr. Sayre : "Two years after the death of Mr. Watkins — that is, in 1767 — the Rev. John Sayer was appointed by the society to the Newburgh Mission and parts adjacent. Mr. Sayer did not live in Newburgh, but back in the country, at a place called Bellomont, preaching alternately at Newburgh, Otterkill, and Wallkill. He obtained charters for three parishes, St. George's in the county of Ulster, St. Andrew's in the precinct of Wallkill, and St. David's in the county of Orange. The charter of St. George's is now in the possession of that Parish, that of St. Andrew's is entered on the Parish Record, both bearing date July 30, 1770, and that of St. David's is recorded in the office of Secretary of State at Albany, in the Book of Patents, dated July 31, 1770. Mr. Sayer did not confine his labors to his three stations, for he says in a letter to the Society in 1773 that he "officiates at Warwick, a place 20 miles from his residence, once a month on week-days, and once in three months on Sundays, though it be no part of his mission, and that he reads prayers and preaches on week-days in many distant parts of the mission, for the sake of the aged and infirm, and for the purpose of capturing the children of the poor."
Mr. Sayer was a physician as well as a priest, a popular preacher, and a devoted churchman. In 1773 Mr. Sayer suddenly left his mission, leaving every- thing in disorder and confusion. The cause of his leaving is now unknown, un- less his subsequent action may suggest an explanation. He was an ardent loyalist, and probably had no sympathy with the ideas and feelings which were prominent around him. He was transferred from this mission to Fairfield, Conn., where he served till the invasion of General Tryon in 1779, when he reported to the Society that he had retired within the king's lines. He went to New York and afterwards to Nova Scotia, where he died. The Rev. Philo Sheldon, in a manu- script history of Trinity Church, Fairfield, Conn., says of the Rev. John Sayer, that he was a man of superior ability, a great preacher, rather inclined to Calvin- istic principles, but a high Tory.[1]
"The Rev. John Sayre was missionary at Fairfield, Conn., where he had a trying experience during the Revolutionary war. In a letter dated Nov. 8, 1779, he speaks of the hardships endured by the Loyalists at the hands of both the contending parties. In his church the hangings were torn down, the leads stripped off, bullets fired through the windows and the entire building exposed to every sort of wanton defilement. His congregation were subjected to every kind of oppression -- fined and imprisoned on the most frivolous pretences. Mr. Sayre himself was confined to his house and garden and proclaimed as an enemy to his country, and all persons were forbidden (under threat of severe penalty for disobedience) to have any manner of dealing with him. "This order was posted up in every store, mill, mechanical shop, and public house in the county and was repeatedly published in the newspapers... Yet we wanted for nothing; our people under cover of night supplying us with comforts and necessaries of life." On July 7, 1779, the British troops under General Tryon landed at Fairfield and set fire to the town. "The ungovernable flames," writes Mr. Sayre "soon extended on all sides and in a few minutes left me with a family consisting of wife and eight children destitute of food, house and raiment... My loss included my little all."[2]
One week after Tryon burned Fairfield, July 8, 1779, the Pastor of the Congregational church in that town wrote to a friend that " Mr. Sayre, the Church of England missionary, begged the General to spare the town, but was denied. He then begged that some few houses might be spared as a shelter for those who could provide habitations nowhere else; this was denied also.
Under such circumstances he sought a shelter for his family on board the British fleet, but without any pledge of protection, or any promise of help or assistance from the commander of the expedition, and went to New York, then in possession of the British army. There he remained several months, recruiting his health and strength, which had been seriously impaired. Afterwards he frequently assisted his brethren who had charge of the parishes of Jamaica, Newtown, Flushing and Huntington on Long Island.
After the Revolution Mr. John Sayre was one of fifty-five petitioners for a grant of land in Nova Scotia. In October, 1783, he went to St. John, New Brunswick, and obtained a grant, receiving what was known as No. 56 Dock Street.
The Rev. John Sayre, writing to the S. P. G., in the month of October, 1783, says that he found on his arrival (in Nova Scotia) a multitude of his fellow sufferers at the mouth of the river unsettled, and many of them on the brink of despair on account of the delays in allotting their lands to them.
He was appointed by Lord Dorchester one of the agents of the government to locate land grants. He afterwards moved to Maugerville, on the St. John's River, where he died August 5, 1784. His widow and other heirs sold the property in St. John to her son James.
His widow returned to the United States (as also did son Francis) and died in Trenton NJ in 1789.
"1784—British Population of Nova Scotia, including Cape Breton and the Mainland, estimated at 32,000 souls, having been increased (since 1771) by the arrival of about 20,000 United Empire Loyalists". Haliburton, Nova Scotia, Vol. II., page 275, StatsCanada[3]
From a newspaper article about Maugerville Church: "The first rector of this old Episcopal Church was Rev. John Sayre. And herewith is a true copy of what is inscribed upon an ash cross about 4 1/3 feet high: 'Here Lies the Body of the Rev. John Sayre - formerly Rector of Trinity Church, Fairfield, Connecticut and one of society's missionaries to that place, from thence refugee with his family within His Majesty's lines in New York and from New York, upon the evacuation of it by British troops to this place; who departed this life at Burton on the St. John River, upon the 5th of August, in the year of Our Lord, 1784, in the 47th year of his age."