Preacher Jefferson Franklin Sage

This is the story of a minister of the African Methodist Episcopal Church who was born a slave in Missouri in 1854. His father had been born in Virginia, and his mother in Kentucky, and brought to Pike County before the Civil War. After the Emancipation of the enslaved people, he made a life in Jonesburg AME church. He appears on the Missouri State Census in Montgomery County for 1876, with his wife Eliza and their two small sons Dick and John.  I also know this from the records of the AME Conference reports made by Brother Samuel Jenkins November 28, 1878. There he is “Local Preachers,

Mary Sage, wife of Rev. J.F. Sage

Jefferson Sage of Jonesburg” clearly indicating he is a Minister of the St. Charles Conference being held at St. John’s AME Church on Washington St.  in St. Charles. In 1880, Preacher Sage has come to St…