NOTE: This is an excerpt from a larger research project concerning Sage Chapel Cemetery in O’Fallon, Missouri.
The name Sage Chapel has been much debated. The name may have come from the sage fields that grew behind the church near Sonderen and Pitman.[1] Naming patterns of African Methodist Episcopal churches of the time suggest this might not be the best answer. Several A.M.E. churches in St. Charles County were named after individuals. In St. Charles, there is St. John’s A.M.E. named after the Apostle John. In Wentzville, there is Grant Chapel (probably named after Abram Grant, who was elected bishop of the African Methodist-Episcopal Church in 1888).[2] In Foristell, there is Smith Chapel (probably named after Rev. M. E. Smith).[3] Cravens Chapel in O’Fallon was named after a Mr. Craven (see earlier). Sage Chapel was most likely named for Rev. Jefferson Franklin Sage. Sage was born on 1 August 1854 in Warren County, Missouri, to Peter and Harriet Sage.[4] His first wife was Eliza or “Lizzie.”[5] Jefferson and Lizzie Sage were living in 1876 in Montgomery County, Missouri. Their children at the time were Dick, age 4, and John, age 1.[6] Lizzie and Dick Sage died before 1880. Jefferson “Jeffrey” remarried in 1879 to Mary and the family moved to St. Charles, Missouri, by 1880. “Jeffrey” worked at the car shops of the St. Charles Car Manufacturing Company. At the time of the census, he and Mary had an infant son who had not been named yet.[7] Jefferson Sage was an itinerant minister who preached in the circuit extending from St. Charles to Jonesburg, roughly covering a route now covered by Interstate 70, in 1886 and 1888.[8] The many moves of Rev. Sage are best explained by the selection of ministers in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The hierarchical system of the A.M.E. Church starts with bishops on the top and presiding elders acting like middlemen between the bishops and the congregations. “At the end of an Annual Conference year, the Presiding Elder reports to the Bishop at the Annual Conference and makes recommendations for pastoral appointments. Pastors receive a yearly appointment to a charge (church), on the recommendation of the Presiding Elder and with the approval and final appointment of the Bishop. The pastor is in full charge of the Church and is an ex-official member of all boards, organizations and clubs of that Church.”[9] Sage moved to Moberly, Missouri by 1892, where he met with other colored ministers of the African Methodist Episcopal Church of northern Missouri to help establish the Western Recorder, published by the Western Publishing Company, a joint stock company formed by colored people. Rev. J. F. McDonald of Paris, Missouri, was chosen editor and Rev. J. F. Sage of Moberly was chosen as business manager.[10] Sage sent a card with a message to the editor of the Sedalia Democrat in February 1893 in which he condemns the actions of one John A. Hughes, who was shot at Moberly for insulting a white woman. Among Sage’s comments, “The sooner southern negroes know what Missouri is sooner, they will learn to avoid trouble. Such negroes as John Hughes are the greatest detriment our race has to its progress and the sooner they are in judgment, the better for the country and the race.”[11]
In November 1893, Sage left Missouri for a new pastorate at the A.M.E. Church in Lawrence, Kansas. He returned to Moberly to move his family to Lawrence but was hurt in a railway accident near Moberly.[12] Sage celebrated his first Thanksgiving at Lawrence by preaching a vegetable sermon.[13] Sage and his family are found in the Kansas State Census of 1895 as residents of Lawrence.[14] While in Lawrence, Sage lost a child to diphtheria on 6 November 1894.[15] He was pastor of St. Luke A.M.E. Church in Lawrence in May 1895.[16] By December, Sage had a new pastorate, this time at St. Paul’s A.M.E. Church in Ottawa, Kansas.[17] Rev. J. F. Sage opened the Kansas Republican State Convention in Wichita with prayer on 10 March 1896.[18] He helped organize the Colored Charity Society in Ottawa, Kansas in March 1896.[19] The A.M.E. Church transferred Rev. Sage from Ottawa, Kansas, to Lincoln, Nebraska on 26 September 1896.[20] His new church was Quinn Chapel A.M.E. Church.[21] In 1897, Sage moved to Joplin, Missouri. He spoke at a celebration of the freeing of slaves in the West Indies and commemoration of the Emancipation Proclamation on 4 August 1897 in Baxter Springs, Kansas.[22] Rev. J. F. Sage preached at Burns Chapel in Kansas City the evening of 19 September 1897.[23] “Jeffrey” Sage and his family returned to Ottawa, Kansas, where they were living at the time of the 1900 U.S. Census.[24] Rev. J. F. Sage traveled to Sedalia, Missouri, to conduct revival services there in 1901. “He reported eighteen additions to the Colored Baptist Church of that city as a result of the meeting.” While in Sedalia, Sage received news that two of his children had come down with smallpox at the family residence in Ottawa, Kansas.[25] He preached the annual sermon to the Daughters of the Tabernacle, a colored order, at the A.M.E. church in Ottawa on 16 June 1901. By this time, Sage had moved from Ottawa to Jefferson City, Missouri.[26] Rev. J. F. Sage gave the invocation at a graduation ceremony at the Lincoln Institute in Jefferson City a few days later.[27] In October, Sage was listed as a resident of Boonville, Missouri, who spent a week visiting his family in Topeka, Kansas.[28] Sage preached an evening message at the C.M.E. church in Sedalia on 28 September 1902.[29] Still a resident of Boonville, Sage attended the forty-ninth annual A.M.E. convention at St. Paul Chapel A.M.E. Church at the corner of Leffingwell and Lawton Avenue in St. Louis.[30] Sage founded an A.M.E. church in Higginsville, Missouri, where he moved in 1904.[31] Sage’s wife Mary died in 1905, before the Kansas State Census. The family moved again in 1905, this time to Lawrence, Kansas.[32] At the end of March, Sage preached the annual sermon for the Knights of Pythias and Court of Calanthe in Lawrence.[33] Sage did not waste time finding someone as a stepmother for the remaining children in the home. He married for the third time on 20 July 1905 in Lawrence to Mrs. Belle Jeans.[34] In 1906, the conference moved him (still a general practice in today’s Methodist church) to Brown’s Chapel A.M.E. church in Parsons, Kansas.[35] Sage was moved again, this time to Wayman Chapel A.M.E. Church at Third and Lowman streets in Fort Scott, Kansas.[36] In 1911, Rev. Jefferson F. Sage was living at 200 Lexington Avenue in Kansas City and was the pastor of St. Paul A.M.E. Church there.[37] He is listed at the same address in Independence, Missouri in 1912.[38] He is listed at the same address in the Kansas City, Missouri, directory in 1913.[39] Sage and his family moved to St. Louis in 1913 and lived at 3016 Market Street.[40] They returned to Kansas City, Missouri, in 1915, when he became pastor of Ward Chapel A.M.E. Church in Kansas City.[41] His picture was published in the Kansas City Sun on 11 May 1918.[42]
In 1920, Sage and his fourth wife Beulah moved to Lexington, Missouri.[43] Sage was ill in May 1922 and could not preside over the quarterly meeting and conference in Joplin, Missouri for which he was supposed to serve as Presiding Elder.[44] He died on 2 May 1922 in Lexington, Missouri of acute pulmonary tuberculosis. His remains were taken to Lawrence, Kansas and interred there.[45]
[1] Robert R. Morris, “O’Fallon’s Slave Legacy,” O’Fallon: A Good Place to Live (Virginia Beach, VA: Donning Publishers, 2006), 105
[2] https://blackthen.com/abram-grant-former-slave-19th-bishop-m-e-church-florida/, accessed 31 August 2020
[3] Dorris Keeven-Franke, “Preacher Jefferson Franklin Sage,” 16 October 2017, https://stcharlescountyhistory.org/2017/10/16/preacher-jefferson-franklin-sage/, accessed 30 August 2020
[4] 1900 U.S. Census, Ottawa Ward 2, Franklin, KS, www.ancestry.com, accessed 29 August 2020; https://www.sos.mo.gov/images/archives/deathcerts/1922/1922_00016839.PDF, accessed 31 August 2020
[5] Dorris Keeven-Franke, “Preacher Jefferson Franklin Sage,” 16 October 2017, https://stcharlescountyhistory.org/2017/10/16/preacher-jefferson-franklin-sage/, accessed 30 August 2020
[6] 1876 Missouri State Census, Township 47, Montgomery, MO, Missouri State Census Collection, 1844-1881, www.ancestry.com, accessed 30 August 2020
[7] 1880 U.S. Census, St. Charles, St. Charles, MO, Roll 714, Page 72A, ED 201, Image 145, FHL Film 1254714, www.ancestry.com, accessed 30 August 2020
[8] Keeven-Franke, “Preacher Jefferson Franklin Sage,” she cites an African Methodist Episcopal Church book donated by Wardell Greer Reed to the St. Charles County Historical Society in 2010
[9] https://www.ame-church.com/our-church/our-structure/, accessed 31 August 2020
[10] Keytesville Chariton Courier (MO), 15 July 1892, Newspaper Archive, accessed 30 August 2020
[11] “Sensible Talk: A Negro Preacher on the Hughes Case,” Sedalia (MO) Democrat, 22 February 1893, Newspapers.com, accessed 30 August 2020
[12] Lawrence (KS) Daily World, 10 November 1893, Newspapers.com, accessed 30 August 2020
[13] Lawrence (KS) Daily World, 30 November 1893, Newspapers.com, accessed 30 August 2020
[14] 1895 Kansas State Census, Lawrence Ward 3, Douglas, KS, www.ancestry.com, accessed 30 August 2020
[15] Lawrence (KS) Daily World, 6 November 1894, Newspapers.com, accessed 30 August 2020
[16] Lawrence (KS) Daily World, 25 May 1895, Newspapers.com, accessed 30 August 2020
[17] Ottawa (KS) Daily Republic, 6 December 1895, Newspapers.com, accessed 30 August 2020
[18] Topeka (KS) State Journal, 10 March 1896, Newspapers.com, accessed 30 August 2020
[19] Ottawa (KS) Daily Republic, 28 March 1896, Newspapers.com, accessed 30 August 2020
[20] Ottawa (KS) Daily Republic, 26 September 1896, Newspapers.com, accessed 30 August 2020
[21] Lincoln (NE) Journal Star, 24 October 1896, Newspapers.com, accessed 30 August 2020
[22] Baxter Springs (KS) News, 10 July 1897, Newspapers.com, accessed 30 August 2020
[23] Kansas City (MO) Journal, 18 September 1897, Newspapers.com, accessed 30 August 2020
[24] 1900 United States Census, Ottawa Ward 2, Franklin, KS, Page 10A, Roll 480, ED 86, FHL Film 1240480, www.ancestry.com, accessed 30 August 2020
[25] Sedalia (MO) Democrat, 10 February 1901, Newspapers.com, accessed 30 August 2020
[26] Ottawa (KS) Evening Herald, 17 June 1901, Newspapers.com, accessed 30 August 2020
[27] Topeka (KS) Plaindealer, 21 June 1901, Newspapers.com, accessed 30 August 2020
[28] Topeka (KS) Plaindealer, 25 October 1901, Newspapers.com, accessed 30 August 2020
[29] Sedalia (MO) Democrat, 28 September 1902, Newspapers.com, accessed 30 August 2020
[30] St. Louis (MO) Palladium, 3 October 1903, Newspapers.com, accessed 31 August 2020
[31] Sedalia (MO) Weekly Conservator, 29 July 1904, Newspapers.com, accessed 31 August 2020
[32] Kansas State Census, 1 March 1905, Kansas State Census Collection, 1855-1925, www.ancestry.com, accessed 31 August 2020
[33] Topeka (KS) Plaindealer, 31 March 1905, Newspapers.com, accessed 31 August 2020
[34] Topeka (KS) Plaindealer, 21 July 1905, Newspapers.com, accessed 31 August 2020
[35] Topeka (KS) Plaindealer, 12 January 1906, Newspapers.com, accessed 31 August 2020; Parsons (KS) Daily Sun, 26 September 1907, accessed 31 August 2020
[36] Fort Scott (KS) Daily Tribune and Monitor, 29 February 1908, Newspapers.com, accessed 31 August 2020; Topeka (KS) Western Index, 7 October 1910, accessed 31 August 2020
[37] 1911 Kansas City, MO, Directory, U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995, www.ancestry.com, accessed 31 August 2020
[38] 1912 Independence, MO, Directory, U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995, www.ancestry.com, accessed 31 August 2020
[39] 1913 Kansas City, MO, Directory, U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995, www.ancestry.com, accessed 31 August 2020
[40] 1913 and 1914 St. Louis, MO, directories, U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995, www.ancestry.com, accessed 31 August 2020
[41] Kansas City (MO) Sun, 13 November 1915, Newspapers.com, accessed 31 August 2020
[42] Kansas City (MO) Sun, 11 May 1918, Newspapers.com, accessed 31 August 2020
[43] 1920 U.S. Census, Lexington Ward 3, Lafayette, Missouri, Roll T625_931, Page 4A, ED 117, Image 1000, www.ancestry.com, accessed 31 August 2020
[44] Kansas City (KS) Advocate, 12 May 1922, Newspapers.com, accessed 31 August 2020
[45] https://www.sos.mo.gov/images/archives/deathcerts/1922/1922_00016839.PDF, accessed 31 August 2020
Historical Projects of Justin Watkins 