Notice of the External Characters and Habits of Troglodytes Gorilla ... from the Gaboon River: Osteology of the Same...
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Notice Of The External Characters And Habits Of Troglodytes Gorilla ... From The Gaboon River: Osteology Of The Same
Thomas S. Savage, Jeffries Wyman
Thomas Staughton Savage was an American Protestant clergyman, physician, missionary to Liberia, and naturalist.
Background
Savage was born on June 7, 1804 in upper Middletown (now Cromwell), Connecticut, United States, son of Josiah and Mary (Roberts) Savage, and a descendant of John Savage who was made a freeman of Middletown in 1654.
Although named Thomas Jefferson by his parents, upon beginning his theological studies he dropped the latter name because he believed Jefferson was an infidel, and substituted that of Staughton.
His father, who had served as a youth in the Revolutionary army, was a ship-owner, largely interested in the West Indian trade, in which he made a considerable fortune; he was part owner of the celebrated brig Commerce of Hartford, wrecked in 1815 on the coast of the Sahara. Thomas' mother was the daughter of Dr. Aaron Roberts, a surgeon in the Revolution.
Education
Savage was a student at Yale College, from which he was graduated in 1825. Entering the Yale Medical School in 1830, he received the degree of M. D. in 1833. Later he entered the Theological Seminary in Virginia, at Alexandria, from which he graduated.
Career
Following his graduation, Thomas Staughton undertook an extensive journey, traveling west to Cincinnati, south to New Orleans, and northward along the Atlantic Coast. On October 23, 1836, was ordained priest.
As the first missionary sent to Africa under the auspices of the Protestant Episcopal Church, Savage arrived at Cape Palmas, Liberia, on December 25, 1836, and established a mission on Mount Vaughan. The next year he visited native villages along the Cavally River, Monrovia, and the "slave factories" at Gallinas River.
Serious ill health forced him to return to America, in 1838. With his wife he sailed again for Africa and arrived at Cape Palmas on January 23, 1839. In 1840 he took an easterly voyage as far as Akkra, stopping at many points along the Slave, Ivory, and Gold coasts. Again, in June 1843, Savage was obliged to return home for rest and recuperation.
After a year's absence, he sailed a third time for Africa on May 18, 1844, accompanied by four missionaries. In January 1845 they were transferred to the newly opened station at Fishtown, Liberia, remaining there two years.
Savage finally resigned from his missionary work, on account of ill health, in December 1846, but did not sail from Cape Palmas until March 3, 1847.
On the way he was detained in the Gaboon River and spent the month of April at the house of Rev. J. L. Wilson, a Presbyterian missionary. Here he saw the skull of a large ape which he recognized as different from the chimpanzee. Seeking further evidence, he obtained, through chiefs of the Mpongwe tribe, four skulls and other bones of this animal which proved to be the largest of the great apes, the gorilla, previously unknown. Upon his arrival in America, he made this anthropoid known to science, publishing "Notice of the External Characters and Habits of Troglodytes gorilla, a New Species of Orang from the Gaboon River.
His another work "Observations on the External Characters and Habits of Troglodytes niger". Hardly less interesting are his "Observations on the Species of Termitidae of West Africa, Described by Smeathman as Termes bellicosus and by Linnaeus as "Termes fatalis" and "The Driver Ants of Western Africa".
For three years following his return to America, Savage served parishes in Mississippi and Alabama. From 1851 to 1861, and from 1865 to 1867, he lived at Pass Christian, Mississippi Removing North in 1868, he was appointed associate secretary of the Episcopal Board of Missions, and from 1869 until his death, he was rector of the Church of the Ascension in Rhinecliff, New York.
Achievements
Thomas Staughton Savage was known for his famous work "Notice of the External Characters and Habits of Troglodytes gorilla, a New Species of Orang from the Gaboon River", where he described skull and other bones from an unknown ape species in Africa. Almost equally important was his paper on the chimpanzee, "Observations on the External Characters and Habits of Troglodytes niger", in which he made the earliest step toward the scientific understanding of this animal's behavior, a subject that has now became almost a special branch of psychology.
Although of Congregationalist ancestry, young Savage joined the Protestant Episcopal Church while a student.
Connections
His first marriage to Susan A. Metcalfe September 28, 1838. His wife died in Liberia three months later. On June 2, 1842, he married Maria Chapin of Newbury, who also died the same year from effects of the Liberian climate. He married Elizabeth Rutherford of Providence at Cape Palmas on December 18, 1844.
He was the father of five children, Elizabeth Fenwick Savage (born 1846), Alexander Duncan Savage (born 1848), Thomas Rutherford Savage (born 1852), William Rutherford Savage (born 1854), Jesse Duncan Savage (born 1858). He was the grandfather of the American artist Thomas Casilear Cole (1888-1976).
