He attended the public schools there, moved to Michigan, and settled in Kalamazoo, where he studied theology and was ordained as a minister.
In the early 1830s, Sprague was a circuit minister for many communities in central and southwest Michigan.
He delivered the first gospel sermon ever given in Van Buren County, Michigan, in the first log cabin which was built in spring 1829.
[1] He organized the first Methodist class in Niles in 1832 and was pastor there in 1862 when construction began on a historical Italianate style church building.
[3] Sprague defeated incumbent Democrat Charles E. Stuart to be elected as a Whig, though he is sometimes also identified with the Free Soil Party, from Michigan's 2nd District to the Thirty-first Congress, serving March 4, 1849–March 3, 1851.