Flashback: Sage, Bay City Library, Cornell Univ. Benefactor

Timber Titan's 195th Birthday Marked in January; He Died in 1897

March 13, 2009
By: O. J. Cunningham

Henry W. Sage is remembered fondly in Bay City for his gift of $50,000 to build a library.

The Bay City Sage Library website proclaims: "A gift from lumberman Henry W. Sage, this building housed 10,000 volumes when dedicated in 1884. The design is "French Chateau" style. A niche houses the "Statue of Learning", while a century-old fountain with a statue depicting the Greek mythological characters Leda and the Swan highlights the front lawn. In addition to the collection of books, audio recordings, videos, etc., the branch also provides access to the INTERNET as well as to several on line databases is available."

That historic building marked its 125th year and remains the oldest building continuously used as a library in Michigan. It is located at Midland and Wenona streets in west Bay City and contains 80,000 volumes and electronic audio materials.

Names of his relatives also live on in the streets of the West Side: Henry, after himself; William Henry, Dean and DeWitt, his sons; and Linn, his wife's maiden name.

Certainly Mr. Sage is even more revered in his adopted home of Ithaca, New York, for his gifts totaling $1,250,000 to Cornell University.

Sage's beneficence is honored at Cornell in Sage College, $266,000; Susan E. Linn Sage Chair of Philosophy (and Home for Sage Professors of Philosophy) $61,000; Sage School of Philosophy, $200,000; University Library Building, $260,000; library endowment, $300,000; Archaeological Museum, $8,000; floating indebtedness of the university, $30,000.

Also, Sage Chapel on the campus of Cornell was built by Henry W. Sage in 1874 under direction of Rev. Charles Babcock, professor of architecture, the same man who designed Bay City's Sage Library. The Bay City firm of Pratt & Koeppe also contributed to the design and construction supervision.

Sage's life was a classic "rags to riches" story since his father, Charles, and mother Sally Williams Sage, had struggled with finances and illness.

Sage was born Jan. 31, 1814 in Middletown, Connecticut, on the farm of his grandparents. The family moved to Ithaca in 1827 where his mother's brothers owned a successful mercantile business.

Young Henry wrote as a boy: ""I try to look up from this mist of poverty and obscurity which at present surrounds us and to hope -- and be determined that at some future period we shall once more emerge from it and cut something of a figure in this world."

Sage was forced to abandon his hopes to attend Yale University by poverty and to forgo a career in medicine because of poor eyesight. But he compiled capital in the employ of his uncle's mercantile business, according to Marvin Kusmierz of the Bay-Journal website.

He began to buy timber land and establish sawmills at Lake Simcoe, Canada, in partnership with W.H. Grant and later began buying land with John McGraw.

That he did prosper is attested to by historical reports that Sage owned 500,000 acres in Michigan and was the state's largest private landholder. He also had extensive properties in Wisconsin, New York and Canada.

He became interested in Lower Saginaw, the village that became Bay City, as early as 1847. He was unable to persuade James G. Birney to sell his 116 acres on the west side of the river, a tract he finally bought for a reported $10,000 from Birney's widow, Elizabeth Fitzhugh, in 1864. The riverfront became the site of the world's largest lumber mill, known as the Sage & McGraw Mill for his partner John McGraw, another Ithaca land and timber speculator.

Sage developed the Village of Wenona, sold lots to workers for $200 each, built a tenement house for single men and urged temperance, thrift and hard work.

In 1867, according to Mr. Kusmierz, Sage wrote to mill manager J.G. Emery: "I hope your Town Government may be speedily reformed. Clean out the Liquor Shops. Shut up swine and all stray cattle so that cleanliness and sobriety may walk together. Above all -- when you pass a just and proper ordinance see that it is executed to the letter."

Sage died Sept. 17, 1897 after a long illness. He was 83. His wife had died 10 years previously in a carriage accident. He is buried in Ithaca.