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American politician (1836–1907)
Russell Alexander Alger was an American politician and businessman. He served as the 20th governor of Michigan, U.S. Senator, and U.S. Secretary of War. Impoverished as a child, Alger accumulated wealth throughout his life and died a respected businessman. He was at various points an army officer, a financier, lumber baron, and railroad owner. He was supposedly a distant relation of author Horatio Alger, who often wrote about such "rags to riches" tales.
Russell Alexander Alger was born on February 27, 1836, in Lafayette Township, Medina County, Ohio. His parents were Russell and Caroline Alger (née Moulton). Hailing from a New England family, his ancestors came from England to Massachusetts in 1759. His parents died in 1848, leaving Russell the oldest of three orphaned children, without money and with a brother and sister to care for and support. He had been accustomed to working for the neighbors for a small quantity of provisions or a few pennies a day even before the death of his parents, who were very poor. He now found homes for his brother and sister and secured work for himself on a farm, his remuneration being his board, clothes and the privilege of attending school three months out of the year. He attended Richfield Academy in Richfield, Summit County, Ohio, and taught country school for two winters. He studied law in Akron, Ohio, and was admitted to the bar in March 1859. He first began to practice law in Cleveland. In 1860, he moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, and engaged in the lumber business.
Alger was the founder of a prominent family, many of whom became involved in 20th century Michigan politics and active in the Republican Party. The Algers had a home in Black River, Alcona Township, Michigan, from which Alger oversaw his lumbering operations. On April 2, 1861, he married Annette Huldana Squire Henry of Grand Rapids. They had six children; Henrietta, Caroline, Frances, Russell Jr., Frederick, and Allan. Frederick graduated from Harvard in 1899, served as a lieutenant colonel with the American Expeditionary Force in France during the First World War, and was awarded the French Legion of Honor. Russell Jr. was instrumental in persuading the Packard Motor Car Company to move to Michigan from Ohio. He built a palatial Italian Renaissance style estate, "The Moorings," in Grosse Pointe. It was donated in 1949 and became the Grosse Pointe War Memorial.
He died in Washington, D.C., in 1907. He is interred in Elmwood Cemetery in Detroit, Michigan.
Biographical detail compiled from Wikipedia and Wikidata, which are edited openly and may be incomplete or out of date. Fleet data is our own. Source →
