The earliest Sawyer I found was Hannah, a "F.N." or "Mulatto" woman, born about 1745, who lived in both Granville County, N.C., and Halifax County, Va. She was probably the mother of a Susanna Sawyer who was born about 1772 and married an emancipated slave named Thomas Good in Halifax County, Va., in 1793.
One of my white neighbors in Pennsylvania descends from the Sawyers and wrote a book called "Passing."
Paul