Russell Alexander Alger

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.

Alger was active in politics as a Republican. In 1866, he was a delegate to the party's Wayne County convention and its state convention. In the late 1860s, Alger was a leader of the Boys in Blue, an organization of Union veterans formed to support Republican Party policies and candidates. In October 1872, Alger was a vice president of the committee that organized a Republican campaign event which featured a speech by James G. Blaine, then serving as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.

In June 1876, Alger was a vice president of the committee which sponsored a Republican rally in Detroit that began that year's presidential campaign. In early October 1876, Alger was a vice president of the committee that organized a mass Republican rally in Detroit which featured a speech by former governor Edward Follansbee Noyes of Ohio. In late October 1876, he was one of the vice presidents of the committee that organized a Republican rally in Detroit which included a keynote address by U.S. Senator James G. Blaine of Maine.

In early June 1880, Alger was a delegate to a mass interstate meeting of Union veterans which met in Chicago to devise a plan for supporting Republican candidates in that year's elections. In mid-June, he presided over the Republican meeting in Detroit which was organized to ratify the results of the 1880 Republican National Convention, which had been held earlier in the month.