Axlines

In 1739 the first of the Poages, Poagues, Pugues and Poags came to Virginia by way of Pennsylvania, Robert and John. On May 20, 1740, in Orange County court, Robert Poage proved his importation with his wife, Elizabeth, sister of John Preston, and nine children: Margaret, John, Martha, Sarah, George, Mary, William, Elizabeth and Robert: a tenth, Thomas, was born in Virginia. He settled in Augusta County, near Fort Defiance, gave the land on which Augusta Stone Church Stands, was its first elder of record, and a member in 1745 of the first bench of magistrates in the new county. "His clan has run largely to ministers and wives of ministers" chiefly in the line of John Poage - the eldest son, whose eldest daughter, Elizabeth married the Rev. Moses Hoge, DD, pastor of Moorefield and Shepherdstown (now WV), president of Hempden-Sydney College, first professor of Divinity to the Synod of Virginia. Her descendants are found in the families of Hoge, Boatrite, Spencer, Trawick, Wallace, Wardlaw and Wilson. Mrs. Sampson in Kith and Kin, gives Mary Blair as the wife of John Poage, a kinswoman of the Rev. John Blair who organized the New Providence Church in 1746. H. M. Williamson, Poage historian, was convinced by court records that she was Mary Crawford, a sister of Patrick Crawford.

• The Descendants of Robert and John Poage Prof. Andrew Woods Williamson, Henry Martyn Williamson and John Guy Bishop Volume Two Privately Printed by The McClue Printing Company, Staunton, VA 1954

Taken from Inscriptions from Augusta Stone Church (oldest cemetery), Ft. Defiance, Augusta Co., Virginia, by Mrs. C. F. Rudolph, Washington, DC., 1953.

Immigrant from Ireland-1739. Elder in Augusta Stone church- 1740. Justice, First Commission of the Peace. Augusta County- 1745. Died in 1774. And to the memory of his wife Elizabeth Preston.

(Monument erected by J. G. Bishop, Nyack, NY, a descendant.)