My Genealogy Hound

SAVAGE, CHARLES ALEXANDER was born in Bangor, Me., Oct. 26, 1814, and is the third son of Alexander and Priscilla (Thomas) Savage. Fitted in the schools of his native city, he entered Bowdoin College in the fall of 1833, and graduated in regular course in 1837, in the same class with John A. Andrew, the War Governor of Massachusetts; the Rev. Doctors Field and Fiske, and other men of mark. After studying law in the office of William Abbott, Esq., of Bangor, he was admitted to the Penobscot bar in 1839, and in the same year he came to the West, settled at Quincy, and entered on the practice of his profession.

In 1840 he received the appointment of Illinois agent of the Munn Land Company, located in New York, in which capacity, together with the prosecution of a general land agency, he has been actively engaged up to a recent date.

The old State Bank of Illinois had closed up its business, and there was no institution north of St. Louis, on the river, furnishing banking facilities, when, in 1848, Mr. Savage, in company with Messrs. Newton, Flagg and I. O. Woodruff, established a banking house at Quincy, and many years prosecuted that business with great vigor. Having formed a wide acquaintance with the country, its leading men and its business interests, he quickly appreciated the grand capabilities of the Mississippi valley yet to be developed, and the agency railroads were to have in the work, and threw himself with rare energy and public spirit into this department. He was directly connected with the origin and actual construction of all, or nearly all, the railroads and railroad bridges that have so largely aided the growth and prosperity of Quincy. He was one of the original movers in building the Quincy & Toledo, the Quincy & Palmyra, and the Quincy & Chicago railroads, having been for several years President of the first, Director of the second, and Treasurer of the third of these corporations.

Mr. Savage was the leading power in the organization of the Meredosia Bridge Company, to form a pathway for railroad trains across the Illinois river, and was President of that company. With other prominent citizens he took the initiatory steps in organizing the Illinois and Missouri Railroad Bridge Companies. Of these he was one of the first directors, and, after their consolidation, he was Secretary of the united company till the completion of the grand structure which spans the Mississippi river at Quincy. This was the first iron bridge ever thrown across that river, and on the question of chartering the company to build it there was a spirited conflict in the Legislatures at Springfield and Jefferson City, and in the Congress at Washington, between the steamboat and the railroad interests involved. The charters were drafted by Mr. Savage, and the cause of the bridge was ably managed by him at the State capitals, and by Governor Wood at Washington.

In addition to such enterprises, which in their success have become monuments of his sagacity and energy, he has since filled the position of Secretary of the Quincy & Warsaw Railroad; has been President of the Quincy, Alton & St. Louis Railway Company; has acted as Director of the Toledo, Wabash & Western; and from its first incorporation down to 1873 he was President of the Quincy, Missouri & Pacific Railway. In all these positions Mr. Savage has acted with uniform integrity and intelligence, and with an overruling public spirit universally admired wherever exhibited among men.

In politics Mr. Savage was a member of the old Whig party, and when that disappeared he joined the rising ranks of the Republican organization, to which he has adhered, without faltering, to the present.

In the civil war he was one of the most prompt and zealous in support of the institutions and authority of the Republic. At its outbreak he happened to be General Manager of the Quincy & Toledo Railroad on behalf of its bondholders; and it is interesting to hear him tell of Grant’s first command — the 21st Regt, Ill. Inf., after having been marched from Springfield afoot — how he took the Colonel and his men from Naples to Quincy by rail, and, with many another, ran over the city to hunt up guns to supply them with arms, that they might drop down into Palmyra, Mo., and suddenly squelch the spirit of rebellion rapidly rising there; or, to hear him describe how six companies were dispatched from Quincy by steamboat, under sealed orders from Governor Yates to drop down to Hannibal and stop the casting of rebel cannon in the foundries there; and how the rebel flags, flying from numerous houses, disappeared as, with drum and fife, the column marched through the streets and took position on a height commanding the city; or how he got possession, at Rushville, of brass twelve-pounders, owned by the Government and wanted for its defense, but held, forsooth, by beautiful patriots to fire salutes withal; and how at midnight, by horse, they were drawn through the sleeping town, rushed by rail over to Springfield, and thence, without delay, dispatched to Cairo, to be the first mounted ordnance in defense of that important and imperiled point. The railroads of Illinois did noble service for the old flag, in the hot haste of that unanticipated war.

Absorbed as Mr. Savage has always been in special lines of effort, he has yet found time to act — and has been second to none in zeal — for the moral and social advancement of Quincy. Long a member of the First Presbyterian Church (to quote from a history of Quincy), “he is a Christian gentleman of the noblest type. He has munificently aided the charitable, educational and religious institutions of our city, and has at all times been the friend of science and art. Of affable address, of rare judgment, and a sagacious observer, he wields a large influence with the leading men of Quincy, and is admired and esteemed by all who know him.” This testimony is true.

Mr. Savage was first married Oct. 2, 1842, to Miss Elvey Wells, daughter of Levy Wells, Esq. She died July 19, 1873. He was again married, Dec. 29, 1875, to Mrs. Olivia T. Murphy, nee Thomas, daughter of William Thomas, M. D., late of Poughkeepsie, N. Y.

Such is a brief outline of the life history of one whose life has been marked by that enterprise and devotion to principle which must inevitably lead to honorable success.