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Lieutenant Jacob M. Poage Biography
Hon. Jacob M. Poage. One of the worthy pioneer residents of Pattonsburg, who by reason of a long carer of industry, careful management, patient endurance and upright dealing, has earned the respite from labor which he is now enjoying in circumstances of ease and comfort, is Judge Jacob M. Poage. Now that the period of his life in Daviess County reaches back over a period of forty-eight years, he is fortunate indeed in being able to review the past with the happy consciousness that he has discharged faithfully his duties in public and private relations, and that he has borne his full share in building up the most important interests and promoting the highest welfare of the locality among whose people he has lived so long. Judge Poage was born in Greenup (now Boyd) County, Kentucky, August 23, 1835, and is a son of Hugh Allen and Eliza (Murphy) Poage, the former born in Virginia and the latter in Pennsylvania. The mother died when Jacob M. was about three weeks old, the only child of his parents, while the father passed away at the home of his son in Daviess County, having come here about ten years after the advent of Jacob M. Judge Poage's boyhood was passed in the mountainous, eastern part of Kentucky, where the soil was unproductive, the people poor, and the children forced to go to work at a tender age. The scene of his youth was the Ohio River, four miles from the Virginia state line, where the subscription schools were few and far between, his educational advantages being therefore very limited, although he has since been a reader and student and has added to his information by observation. He remained at home with his father until reaching the age of seventeen years, at which time he began to learn the carpenter's trade and served a two- year apprenticeship thereto. He subsequently began to work at his trade, and was thus engaged when the Civil war came on. His sympathies being with the Union cause he enlisted in Company E, Fourteenth Kentucky Volunteer Infantry, and with that organization saw three years and four months of service in Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama, during which time he participated in numerous hard-fought engagements, including Cumberland Gap and the Atlanta campaign. As a soldier he proved himself courageous in battle and faithful to duty, and January 31, 1865, was honorably discharged with an excellent record. For the two years following his military service, Mr. Poage was employed at his trade in his native state, and there, in March, 1865, was united in marriage with Miss Margaret E. Savage, of Greenup County, Kentucky, a daughter of Nicholas and Mary (McCroskey) Savage, natives of the Blue Grass State. Mr. Savage was an extensive farmer and owned 400 acres of land in Greenup County, but during his "later years disposed of his property and came to Daviess County, Missouri, with his wife, and here they passed their last days with their children, the father dying at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Fulwider, west of Pattonsburg, while Mrs. Savage died at the home of Mr. Poage. In the spring of 1867 Judge and Mrs. Poage came to Daviess County, Missouri, and spent the first summer in Benton Township, with William Savage, Mrs. Poage's brother, whose wife had recently died, and for whom Mrs. Poage kept house. In the fall of the same year Judge Poage bought 160 acres of his present farm, that part on which the buildings are now located, but at that time there were only eight acres cleared, the balance being in brush and timber. There was a small log cabin on the place, with one door, one window and a six-foot fireplace, and in this primitive home Judge and Mrs. Poage began their life in Daviess County, moving to the place March 4, 1868. Judge Poage immediately began to improve the property—as he says: "I first cleared all on top of the ground, and then underneath." From that time to the present he has labored faithfully to make this one of the finest properties in the county. Many improvements have been made and he has added to the farm until it now contains 300 acres, all of which he has improved and put under cultivation. His first land cost him $6.25 per acre, some of which he could now sell for $300 an acre; one 80-acre tract, purchased subsequent to his first property, cost him but $2.50, while for other land he has paid as high as $20 an acre. All of his land could now easily bring $100 an acre. In 1871 Judge Poage built his present frame house, the lumber for which he brought to his farm from the City of Chicago, just previous to the great fire, and this was the first carload of pine lumber shipped into the Town of Pattonsburg. He also displayed his progressive spirit by buying and bringing here the first reaper and dropper. When Judge Poage bought his present farm, Pattonsburg had not been started, his nearest railroad being at Stewartsville, Missouri, thirty miles distant. The railroad did not come to Pattonsburg until 1871, at which time the present site of the city was covered with timber from Judge Poage's east'line to Main Street. East of Main Street the land had been broken and this the judge farmed until he could get his other land cleared. The timber was so heavy, in fact, and the roads so scarce, that it was customary, when starting on a journey, for the settlers to take along an axe, with which to cut their way through. After Pattonsburg was started, Judge Poage purchased ten acres of land across the road from his farm east of Poage Street, named in his honor, for $20 per acre, and this property he laid off in lots and sold as such. Judge Poage now has four large barns on his farm, besides numberless outbuildings, as he has always been a firm believer in taking care of what he has raised. He has an outside wash house, an acetylene gas plant, tool sheds, stock sheds, feed grinding building, a large chicken house and a tenant house, and all are in the best of repair and condition. He also has five houses in the City of Pattonsburg, which he rents, and is a stockholder in the Daviess County Savings Bank of Pattonsburg, and a member of the directing board of that institution. For many years past he has been an extensive feeder of cattle, and at the present time is feeding sixty head of spring calves. Judge and Mrs. Poage have been the parents of four children, namely: Mary Eliza, who was born in Kentucky and died in 1872 in Daviess County, Missouri; Carrie Luella, who is the wife of Ollie Weller and resides at Sherman, Texas; Daisy J., who is the wife of Alonzo Bridges, of Bedford. Iowa; and Nicholas L., who lives with his parents and is his father's assistant in his farming operations. Judge and Mrs. Poage' and all of their children are consistent members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Judge Poage is a Mason. In politics he is a democrat, and before the country school was consolidated with the city school, he and makes a home for his old age. Judge Poage belongs to the latter class. He has always been a hard worker and is still disposed to carry on his share of the work. Being a carpenter by trade, he has been able to furnish a large part of the labor required in the construction of every building on the place, and there are at least twenty good, substantial structures, much of the timber for which he has taken from his own woods, cut, hauled to the sawmill and put in place in the building. Judge Poage represents a type of pioneer now fast disappearing. In his eightieth year he is still active in mind and body, and his recollection of early events makes him an interesting conversationalist. He is well provided for in his declining years, and is passing them in peace and comfort, with the respect and esteem of all men as an additional reward for a life of honest and well-meaning effort. Source: A History of Northwest Missouri, edited by Walter Williams; Published by The Lewis publishing company, 1915, Vol. 3, pp. 1444-46
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