Preacher Jefferson Franklin Sage

At the time that the Trustees purchased the one-acre parcel of ground known as Sage Chapel Cemetery in 1881, a travelling preacher named Jefferson Franklin Sage was ministering between St. Charles and Jonesburg, Missouri.[1] Twenty two-year old Pastor Sage is first found in Jonesburg in 1876 living with his wife Liza and 2 small sons John and Dick. He remarried in 1879 and has moved to St. Charles in 1880[2]. He and his second wife Mary, have a new son James, and he works as a clerk at the American Car Foundry when living in St. Charles in 1880. Pastor Jefferson Franklin Sage is found throughout the records of St. John’s African Methodist Episcopal at their Quarterly Conference, beginning in 1878, and the records noted as Grant Chapel[3], another African Methodist Episcopal Church in Wentzville. He is recorded as a Jonesburg minister, and indicated as traveling between Jonesburg and St. Charles. No church records for Sage Chapel African Methodist Church have been located yet, which tell us how the name of Sage Chapel Cemetery relates to “Local Preacher Jefferson Sage”.  However, he was apparently well loved by the black community as he continued to serve in that capacity for many years. By 1894, J.F. Sage is serving a new congregation as a minister in Kansas. He would later be called to Lexington, Missouri, where he died in 1922.  

[1] Records of the Conferences of the African Methodist Church, Records located in the St. Charles County Historical Society, 101 S. Main Street, St. Charles, MO 63301

[2] 1880 Census, Saint Charles, St Charles, Missouri; Roll: 714; Family History Film: 1254714; Page: 72A; Enumeration District: 201

[3] Records located in the St. Charles County Historical Society, 101 S. Main Street, St. Charles, MO 63301