Edward was born on November 26, 1761 at Princeton, Massachussets, United States, the second child of Seth and Lydia (Craige) Savage and a grandson of Edward Savage, of Huguenot descent, who emigrated from Ireland to Massachusetts in 1696.
His older brother John had become a successful merchant in Philadelphia.
The younger Edward, according to a family tradition which is probably true, learned the goldsmith's trade, and thus probably received some practice in engraving.
By 1789 Savage had attained such proficiency as a painter that he was commissioned by the president of Harvard College to paint a portrait of Washington. The latter recorded in his diary, December 21, 1789: "Sat from ten to one o'clock for a Mr. Savage, to draw my Portrait for the University of Cambridge, in the State of Massachusetts. " The picture was delivered at Cambridge probably in August 1790, the artist having in the meantime, while he was in New York, made for John Adams another Washington portrait - not, as has been asserted, a replica of the first one.
Savage went in 1791 to London, where he is said to have had instruction from Benjamin West and where he engraved several plates in mezzotint and stipple. His journeying seems to have extended to Italy.
In 1795 he exhibited at Philadelphia a panorama depicting London and Westminster in a circle. Leaving Philadelphia about 1801, he joined with Daniel Bowen in opening the New York Museum, exhibiting works of art and curiosities. These were later reassembled at Boston in the Columbian Museum, which, with most of its treasures, was burned in 1803, reerected and again burned in 1807, only to be re-inaugurated and continued until 1825 when it was absorbed by the New England Museum.
His portraits of George and Martha Washington, now owned by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, are certainly creditable paintings. Savage also made his own portraits in oil of Gen. Anthony Wayne, Dr. Benjamin Rush, and Thomas Jefferson.
Savage's name is not found in the Philadelphia directory after 1801. He was a partner from 1809 onward in the Poignaud and Plant Cotton Factory at the nearby town of Lancaster.
At Princeton, Massachusetts Savage ended his days.
Savage married at Boston, October 13, 1794, Sarah Seaver, who survived him. His fifth child was born at New York, March 31, 1802; his sixth child, August 22, 1805, at Princeton, Massachussets, where a seventh and an eighth also were born.
