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Switzerland County

Biography

Philander S. Sage, M.D.

Vevay, is one of the oldest practicing physicians of the county. He was born in Oneida County, N.Y., in 1815, and obtained a good education in the common schools and the seminary in Steuben County, N.Y. While an infant he was bound out to a farmer, with whom he remained till sixteen years of age. Tiring of the serfdom to which he had been subjected he ran away and took up his abode with an uncle, Jud Avery, near Utica, N.Y. Soon after this he began clerking in a store, and not long after that, in 1832, he began the study of medicine under Dr. Stephen F. Fenton, with whom he continued four years. In 1836 he took a course of lectures in the Herkimer Medical College and in May of the following year immigrated to Indiana and located at Allensville till 1863, when he removed to East Enterprise, from which point he came to Vevay in 1878. In his profession Dr. Sage has met with excellent success, and as a citizen his standing is equally high. While at Allensville he officiated as postmaster for some time, and served twenty-two years as justice of the peace. In 1854 the people of this district, then including the counties of Ohio and Switzerland, chose him for the important office of State Senator, the dignity of which position he ably sustained and the duties of which he faithfully and creditably discharged.

Source: History of Switzerland County, Indiana 1885. Chicago, Illinois: Weakley, Harraman & Co., 1885
Transcribed by: Sheila Kell