Re: Hasten Poe of Chatham Co., NC
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In reply to:
Re: Hasten Poe of Chatham Co., NC
thomas mattocks 8/08/02
Gee, Thomas, that was a long time ago.Jesse's father being a William was only a theory.I had some basis for it.I think there was a posting on a Dowdy family board saying that Jesse's mother was thought to be the widow of William Poe.So, I used it in a hypothesis--scientific method and all that.I used to post theories occasionally to see if anyone would react with additional information, yea or nay.I don't do it anymore, because lots of people believe anything they see on the Internet--or in print for that matter.I have never found or heard any substantiation for the William theory; so it remains just that, a theory no better than any other.
There is a strong family tradition that Jesse Poe was born in Culpeper, Virginia.I have never heard anything different.He must certainly have been born in Virginia.He was living alone in 1850; and he, or someone, told the ennumerator that he was 80 years old and born in Virginia.His children were very consistent in telling census takers that their father was born in Virginia.
The family story goes that Jesse was not absolutely sure how old he was, but everyone thought he was about 13 at the end of the Revolution.They put 1768 as birth date on his tombstone.I guess we can excuse them for thinking the Revolution ended with the Battle of Yorktown in 1781.There is also a strong family tradition that Jesse lived his boyhood in Chatham.I am not aware of any documentation concerning the young Jesse Poe.If anyone has or finds any, I sure would like to hear about it.