John S. Savage

John Simpson Savage (October 30, 1841–November 24, 1884) was a school teacher, attorney, and member of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio.

John S. Savage was born in Clermont County, Ohio, the son of James and Frances (Battson) Savage. James Savage was a school teacher and later a farmer. John received an education in the local public schools and in 1853 relocated to Clinton County, Ohio where he took up his father’s early vocation.

During the five years he taught, he devoted his spare moments to the study of law, and in 1865, he was admitted to practice at the Ohio bar. The same year he was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of Illinois. John Savage opened a law office at Wilmington, Ohio, in partnership with Simeon G. Smith. Their firm of Savage & Smith was a large and remunerative practice well known in the county.

Mr. Savage was united in marriage, December 31, 1868, to Lydia Ayers, a native of Clinton county; they had four children.

John S. Savage was a strong Democrat, casting his first vote for George B. McClellan in 1864. His election to Congress was wholly unsought—he accepted the nomination more to aid in maintaining the organization of his party than in the expectation of being elected. Ohio's third congressional district was overwhelmingly Republican, yet Savage defeated his incumbent opponent John Q. Smith by 1,162 votes. At the succeeding congressional election in 1876, he was narrowly defeated by Mills Gardner, who also served but a single term.

Savage resumed the practice of law in Wilmington. Mr. Savage was a Freemason, of the Knights Templar degree. He died in Wilmington and was interred there in Sugar Grove Cemetery.

ources

* History of Clinton County, Ohio. Chicago: W. H. Beers & Co., 1882.
* Taylor, William A. Ohio in Congress from 1803 to 1901. Columbus, Ohio: The XX Century Publishing Company, 1901.