Born November 22, 1825; Kinderhook, New York
Died August 2, 1908; Chicago, Illinois
“He was one of those enthusiastic workers for the public good, to whom the men of this day owe so much, but of whose names they are often unmindful.” — Chicago Tribune
Ezra Butler McCagg was the first president of the Chicago Club, a gathering place for the city’s most prominent citizens that exercised considerable influence on Chicago business, society and culture.
McCagg, a lawyer, began his career in New York before arriving in Chicago in 1847. The “father of Lincoln Park,” he authored the bill that consolidated autonomous areas of land in north Chicago into the neighborhood of Lincoln Park. A patron of many Chicago cultural organizations, he helped establish the Chicago Academy of Science and participated in the Chicago Historical Society and Astronomical Society. During the Civil War, McCagg was a member of the United States Sanitary Commission, an organization that provided aid for wounded soldiers and promoted healthy living conditions for the military in the North. For his service, he was elected a member of the Loyal Legion, a patriotic society formed in 1865 in reaction to the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln to celebrate the “unity . . . of the Republic” and to support the military.
McCagg served as president of the Northwestern Sanitary Commission, the Chicago Bar Association and the trustees of the Eastern Hospital for the Insane at Kankakee, as well as a trustee of the University of Chicago. He wrote histories of both the United States Sanitary Commission and the Chicago Historical Society, and he penned an account of his travels through Russia and modern-day Georgia, to Constantinople, Bulgaria and Romania, entitled Six Weeks of Vacation in 1883. McCagg served as a founding trustee of the Orchestral Association until his resignation in 1894.
