Mr. Savage's great-great-great-grandfather, Thomas, was a man of high public spirit. Disgusted with the treatment of the majority towards Wheelwright and other friends of Sir Henry Vane, whom he had perhaps accompanied from England, he, with Gov. Coddington and others, removed in 1638, and purchased Rhode Island. He soon returned, however, to Boston, recovered his former standing with early friends, and was often one of the representatives of the town, and, in the trying times of 1665, was respected for his moderation. He was one of those who undertook, in 1673, to erect a barricade in the harbor, for security against a fleet then expected from Holland. Out of this barricade grew, in less than forty years, the Long Wharf, a small portion of which has continued ever since the property of some members of the family. He was Speaker of the Deputies in 1659, and again after an interval of eleven years, and in 1680 was chosen by the colony one of the Assistants, in which station he died, Feb. 14, 1682, aged 75. A funeral sermon on that event is among the printed works of Rev. Samuel Willard, pastor of the third church, of which Major Savage was one of the founders, at the secession occasioned by the coming of Davenport from New Haven to the first. The text was, Isaiah lvii: 1.
The eldest son of this ancestor of most who bear the name on this side of the ocean, Habijah, H. C. 1659, died in a few years, but left children by his wife, daughter of Edward Tyng, one of the Assistants. A grandchild of these parents removed from Boston, early in the last century, to Charleston, S. C., where he is commemorated by Dr. Ramsay, in his History of the Independent Church in that city. Descendants have been known in different parts of South Carolina and Georgia. The late Judge Clay of the latter state, afterwards pastor of the first Baptist Church in Boston, married one, and his son, Thomas Savage Clay, H. C. 1819, is highly respected for his Christian philanthropy.
In the catalogue of the sons of Harvard are numbered eleven lineal descendants of the first Thomas, of whom six have been noticed. John, 1694, was son of Ephraim; Habijah, 1723, was either son or nephew of Habijah; John, 1810, and James Rodon, 1812, were sons of William Savage, Esq., of Jamaica, son of Samuel Phillips Savage, before mentioned.
Of the progenitors of Mr. Savage, no means are possessed by which to trace the line before the arrival of his ancestor in this country; but a family tradition, committed to writing many years since, makes him to have been a brother of Arthur, an English dean.
Mr. Savage fitted for college at Derby Academy, Hingham, under the tuition of Abner Lincoln, and at Washington Academy, Machias, Me., instructed by Daniel P. Upton.
After graduating at Harvard University in 1803, he studied law under the direction of the late Chief Justice Parker, Hon. Samuel Dexter, and Hon. William Sullivan, and entered upon its practice January, 1807.
Mr. Savage has been Representative and Senator in General Court, a Counsellor, and a Delegate to the Convention in 1820 for amending the Constitution of the State. He has been also in the City government as one of the Common Council and an Alderman, as well as one of the School Committee.
In April, 1823, he married Elizabeth O., widow of James Otis Lincoln, Esq., of Hingham. She was daughter of George Stillman of Machias, Me., an officer in the war of the Revolution. Their children are Emma, Harriet, Lucy, and James.
At times letters have engaged the attention of Mr. Savage, but not to withdraw him from the proper duties of his profession or the service of the community in active life. He was during four or five years associated with the gentlemen who edited the (Boston) Monthly Anthology, and contributed articles for that work, as he has also for the North American Review. At the request of the municipal authorities of Boston, he delivered an oration, July 4, 1811. The compilation of the Colonial and Provincial Laws of Massachusetts, published under the title of Ancient Charters, according to direction of General Court, by the late Hon. Nathan Dane, Judge Prescott, and Judge Story, was by these gentlemen confided to his supervision while passing through the press. The Index to the work was prepared by him. He superintended an edition of Paley's Works; and the presswork of the ten volumes of American State Papers, selected by Hon. John Q. Adams, under authority of Congress. But Mr. Savage's greatest effort of this nature was his edition of Gov. Winthrop's History of New England, with notes.
This is a work of much labor and value. It is understood that he has in contemplation a new edition of Farmer's Genealogical Register of the First Settlers of New England.