Russell Sage

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Russell Sage (4 August 1816 - 1906) was a financier and politician from New York.

Sage was born at Shenandoah in Oneida County, New York. He received a public school education and worked as a farm hand until he was 15, when he became an errand boy in a grocery conducted by his brother, Henry R. Sage, in Troy, New York. He had a part interest in 1837-1839 in a retail grocery in Troy, and in a wholesale store there in 1839-1857. In 1841 he was elected an alderman, and he was re-elected to this office until 1848, also serving for seven years as treasurer of Rensselaer County. He was then elected to Congress as a Whig, and served, with re-election, from 5 December 1853 until 3 March 1857. He served on the Ways and Means Committee. Sage was the first person to advocate, on the floor of Congress, the purchase of Mount Vernon by the government. Subsequently he settled in New York City and engaged in the business of selling puts and calls and "privileges" on Wall Street.

On 7 May 1867, Sage's first wife died of stomach cancer. This purportedly led to his focus on the accumulation of wealth later in life. In 1869, Sage was involved in a case concerning the usury laws in New York state, accused of being the gang leader in a usury group. He was convicted and fined $500, but his jail sentence was suspended. Later that year, Sage married his second wife, Olivia Slocum.

He bought a seat on the New York Stock Exchange (1874) and thereafter was known as a financier. At the same time he became interested in railroads, and secured stocks in western roads, notably the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad, of which he was president and vice-president for twelve years. By disposing of these investments, as the smaller roads were absorbed by trunk-lines, he became wealthy.

In his later years he was closely associated with Jay Gould in the management of the Wabash Railway, St. Louis and Pacific, Missouri Pacific Railroad, Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad, Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad and the St. Louis - San Francisco Railway, the American cable company, the Western Union telegraph company and the Manhattan consolidated system of elevated railroads in New York city, in all of which corporations he was a director. Mr. Sage was for many years closely connected with the affairs of the Union Pacific Railroad, of which he was a director. He was a director and vice-president in the Importers and Traders' National Bank for twenty years, and also a director in the Merchants' Trust Company and in the Fifth Avenue Bank of New York City.

In 1891, a man toting a dynamite bomb appeared in his office and demanded a large amount of money. His demand was refused, and the bomb exploded, killing the bomb-toting man and Sage's secretary.

In 1906 he died and left his entire fortune of about $70 million to his wife, Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage (1828-1918), who subsequently devoted a major portion of these funds to philanthropy. In 1907 she established the Russell Sage Foundation, and in 1916 she founded Russell Sage College in Troy. In addition she gave extensively to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and the Emma Willard School.

[edit] Rumors

There is speculation that Russell Sage and his second wife were never in love and never intimate^{[citation needed]}. According to many , the two were married out of convenience, Sage carrying on many different affairs^{[citation needed]}. Some claim that the founding of Russell Sage College in his name was done out of spite for the man, who purportedly hated the concept of women getting an education^{[citation needed]}. While there are apparently two buildings named for Russell Sage at RPI, one (Russell Sage Dining Hall) is actually named after Sage's nephew Russell Sage II [1] who graduated from RPI in 1859.