Lt. Nathaniel Savage

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5 feet 6 inches, Dark Complextion, 33 yrs old, thick sett

Family Information

American Revolution Prisoner of War

From an affidavit written on the letterhead of the Chicago Theological Seminary:

628 Washington Boulevard
Chicago, Ill, Aug. 22, [18]95

Mr. Nathaniel Savage was born in Middletown Upper Houses, Conn, (now Cromwell), Oct 27, 1745, and died in the same place 1823, was married to Mary Stow October 25, 1772. Had 3 sons and 4 daughters. Absalom (my father) was born in 1781 and died in 1821. I heard from my grandfather Nathaniel when a lad of five or six years, confirmed by the son, Nathaniel, with whom he lived at the time of his death, the fact that he was enlisted in the Army of the Revolution of 1776; he was taken prisoner, and imprisoned on the noted British Prison Ship located on Long Island shore; was attacked with the ship fever and given over to die, but being excessively thirsty and not allowed water to drink, in the absence of the guard, he crawled out of his bunk and to a pail of water, drinking freely, thinking as he said, if he must die, he would have one good drink first. This broke the fever and he recovered. After this during that extreme cold winter, the sound was frozen across to the Conn. shore and he escaped through a window in the cabin or hold, fled on the ice to the Conn. shore and escaped.

I do not know what regiment he was connected, nor the time of his service. No family records are preserved which would give the facts in the case. The general statement as I have given, I well remember and I also heard it from the lips of my Grandfather, Eliphalet Wilcox, who served as a privateer at the same time and was a near neighbor of Grandfather Savage.

[signed] G.S.F. Savage

The signer of the above statement, Rev. G.S.F. Savage of Chicago, Illinois, personally appeared before me on this March 26, 1896, and under oath testified that the statements in the above document, are to the best of his knowledge, true and reliable.

[signed] Wm. C. Boyden
Notary Public

[Original bears the seal of Cook's County Illinois]

A portion of the affidavit written by Rev. George Slocum Folger Savage.

The above story is supported in the following references:

• Beer's History of Middlesex County, p.248 (printed 1884)
• Danbridge's "American Prisoners of the Revolution," p.483
• Paper's of the Continental Congress, 196 Vol, 16, p.27
• Letter from Nathaniel Savage Jr.

It is estimated that as many revolutionary soldiers died from disease and starvation in the British Prison-ships anchored in Wallabout Bay, as were killed in battle during the entire war. "But of all these terrible prison-ships, the old Jersey, the 'Hell' as she was called, was the most notorious. She was originally a sixty-four gun ship, which had become unfit for service." Eleven thousand patriots died in the "Jersey" alone. After the war this old hulk was so eatten with the worms bred by pestilence that she sank where she was anchored, and the names of thousands of her victims sank with her, as it is said that nearly every prisoner found a space somewhere in her timbers in which to carve his name.

--Taken from a text by Lucius Buckley Andrus dated 9-1-1934

Ancestry Chart

Lt. Nathaniel Savage was a descendant of John Savage and Elizabeth Dubbin Savage who were original settlers of Cromwell CT, then part of Middletown and often called the Upper Houses. Below is the progression from John to Absalom.

John Savage = Elizabeth Dubbin (m.1652)
-- John Savage = Mary Ranney (m.3/30/1682)
--- Thomas Savage = Mary Goodwin (m.3/21/1710 or 11)
---- John Savage = Martha Beckley (m.8/4/1742)
----- Nathaniel Savage = Mary Stowe (m.10/25/1772)
------ Absalom Savage = Sally Wilcox (m.11/2/1806)

For a more detailed chart see the chart on the George Butler page.