Good Morning, Since the topic of James D. Savage comes up on this list occasionally, it seems a good time to post his short biography, which was originally posted to CA-GOLDRUSH-L in June 1998. This was in response to the following excerpt from the book "An American Odyssey: The Autobiography of Robert Brownlee" which had been posted by Bob Norris: > "Before the war[1850/51 Indian?], Major Savage who commanded the[Mariposa] > battalion, lived with the Indians just as much as any of the bucks, even > though Indiana[NY birth?] was his native state. When I first saw him, he was > traveling in a very unbecoming manner. All he had on was a coarse cotton sheet > which came to his knees, was bare headed and bare footed, with three wives > following him, one after another a little distance apart, and an equal > distance in advance of the oldest of the three, who was about 16 years of age. > The other two being about 12 or 14 near as I could judge. If you are interested in reading more of Jim Savage and early Mariposa County, William Disbro posted four "Early History" messages to this list in 1999. These were from the January 18, 1879 issue of the Mariposa Gazette. To see them, go to the Rootsweb Interactive search site: http://searches2.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl and enter "camaripo-l." Search the 1999 database for "savage and disbro." Jim Savage's biography will follow in separate messages. Anne Trussell atru@ns.net

Ann and all, I really appreciate your Savage posts. Everything I have read said that little is known about him and he frequently made up some pretty tall tales about himself including having arrived in the mother lode via a "moonbeam". He was born around 1817. In 1846, his brother Morgan, himself, wife Eliza and child left on an overland party from Peru, Illinois. There are 2 versions regarding the child...another says Eliza died on the way..like at Donner Pass...giving birth. At one point the party had a dispute about going to Oregon or south to Calif. There was much loss of life and I'm not sure the people that went to Oregon made it at all. James and his brother did survive going the Calif route. Subsequently he was a fighter in the Black Hawk War, member of the Fremont Battalion in Oregon and California, helped build Sutter's saw mill. He then settled in Mariposa where he started his trading business with the Indians. It is strongly suspected he could not write however his linguistic talents were acute. He spoke German, French, Spanish and quickly learned the Indian languages. I believe it is highly probable that he had the 33 reported wives however he had no Yosemite wives....Tenaya refused to let him buy any of the Ahwahneechee women. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Anne Trussell" <atru@ns.net> To: <CAMARIPO-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2001 8:41 AM Subject: [CAMARIPO] James D. Savage > Good Morning, > > Since the topic of James D. Savage comes up on this list occasionally, > it seems a good time to post his short biography, which was originally > posted to CA-GOLDRUSH-L in June 1998. This was in response to the > following excerpt from the book "An American Odyssey: The Autobiography > of Robert Brownlee" which had been posted by Bob Norris: > > > "Before the war[1850/51 Indian?], Major Savage who commanded the[Mariposa] > > battalion, lived with the Indians just as much as any of the bucks, even > > though Indiana[NY birth?] was his native state. When I first saw him, he was > > traveling in a very unbecoming manner. All he had on was a coarse cotton sheet > > which came to his knees, was bare headed and bare footed, with three wives > > following him, one after another a little distance apart, and an equal > > distance in advance of the oldest of the three, who was about 16 years of age. > > The other two being about 12 or 14 near as I could judge. > > If you are interested in reading more of Jim Savage and early Mariposa > County, William Disbro posted four "Early History" messages to this list > in 1999. These were from the January 18, 1879 issue of the Mariposa > Gazette. To see them, go to the Rootsweb Interactive search site: > > http://searches2.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl > > and enter "camaripo-l." Search the 1999 database for "savage and > disbro." > > Jim Savage's biography will follow in separate messages. > > Anne Trussell > atru@ns.net > > > ==== CAMARIPO Mailing List ==== > The California GenWeb Project: > http://www.cagenweb.com/ >