"History of Cottonwood and Watonwan Counties of Minnesota, 1916"



The family of the late Rev. Edward Savage, for many years one of the best-known clergymen in this part of the state, is of French Huguenot stock, the first of that line in America having been Capt. John Savage, who crossed the water and established his family in the English colonies in America in 1690. Rev. Edward Savage was a native of New York state, but had lived in the West since his boyhood and was a resident of Windom and the neighborhood of that city almost from the day of the beginning of a social order hereabout. He founded the Presbyterian church at Windom and was widely influential in the missionary movement in this section of Minnesota in early days, continuing active in the ministry hereabout until his death on January 4, 1910.

Edward Savage was horn at Ogdenburg, New York, September 16, 1841, son of the Rev. John A. and Eliza (Turner) Savage, both natives of that state, the former born in 1799 and the latter in 1803. The Rev. John A. Savage was a minister of note in the Presbyterian church and Waukesha, Wisconsin removed to that city in 1850 and there spent the rest of his life, his death occurring in 1866. His widow survived him many year, her last days being spent in Waukesha, where she died in 1883. Edward Savage was graduated from Carroll College in 1860 and on September 13, 1862, enlisted as a private in Company B, Twenty eighth Regiment, Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, with which he served until honorably discharged on March 26, 1863. In 1865 he entered the Western Theological Seminary a Pennsylvania, from which he was graduated in 1868.

Following his ordination to the ministry of the Presbyterian church, the Rev. Edward Savage returned to Waukesha and in that same year was installed as pastor of the Presbyterian church at Jackson, Minnesota. In 1870 he married and the year following, in 1871, he came to this part of the state and located at the then growing village of Windom, where he organized the Presbyterian church, the date of organization being October 11, 1871. For some years he remained as pastor of the church at Windom and after a number of years as an independent missionary he accepted a call to Bingham Lake, where he remained for several years. In the meantime he had homesteaded a tract of eighty acres near Windom, to which he presently added an adjoining "eighty," and there established his permanent home. From the beginning of his pastoral service in this state, Mr. Savage ever was active in missionary work and his travels in that connection took him to points widely separated throughout this section of the state. In 1881 he temporarily retired from the pulpit and returned to Waukesha, but shortly afterward was made pastor of the Cottage Grove presbyterian church there, remaining there until after his mother's death in 1883, after which for a time he was pastor of the church at Weyauwega, Wisconsin, but in 1886 he returned to Windom and resumed his residence on his homestead, where he remained the rest of his life, filling meanwhile the pulpits at Red Rock and Bingham Lake, having been, with the exception until the day of his death. Politically, Mr. Savage was a Prohibitionist and was ever active in the cause of temperance and righteousness.

The Rev. Edward Savage was twice married. On October 13, 1870, at Delafield, Waukesha county, Wisconsin, he was united in marriage to Margaret A. Robertson, to which union were born four children. Donald R., John A., Eliza Turner and Edward W., all of whom are still living. The mother of these children died on July 3, 1903, and on July 16, 1907, Mr. Savage married Nora A. Schofield, for years one of Windom's best-known school teachers, who survives him.