James Poage, Founder of Ripley, Ohio-- Part 2: Land Grants

From Touring Ohio.

James Poage, 44, arrived in Ohio by flatboat in 1804 to lay claim to 1000 acres of land he received for fighting for Virginia in the American Revolution in what was known as the Virginia Military District .  He came with his wife. 10 children and all of his possessions.

Poage was already a titled land owner in Kentucky as he surveyed in parts of Virginia, Kentucky and Illinois.    Back then, the lead surveyors were usually paid with land.  Plus, he was given the title of colonel, a title reflecting the dangers and military regimen of the surveying teams.

He was a former slave owner, but had come to abhor slavery and decided not to live in Kentucky, a slave state.  He moved his family to what became Ripley, Ohio, one reason why it became so important in the Underground Railroad.

--Brock-Perry

Lt.Col. Mills Stephenson-- Part 10: Running the Flat Boats

After the War of 1812 he acted as a sheriff of Adams County before the formation of Brown County.  Then he got into a milling business near Ripley, Ohio and built and ran flat boats from there to New Orleans.  He would build the flat boat and float it down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans, sell his cargo and break apart the boat and make his way back to Ripley over land.

On one of these trips, he contracted fever and died at Vicksburg, Mississippi, in 1823.  (This gives us two dates, 1822 and 1823 for when he died and two places, Helena, Arkansas, and Vicksburg, Mississippi.)

--Brock-Perry

Lt.Col. Mills Stephenson-- Part 5: Buried in Louisiana or Arkansas?

Mills Stephenson engaged in farming and boat building after the war.  He would build flat boats and float them down to New Orleans from Ripley, Ohio, on the Ohio River.

This source says that he died of swamp fever in Shreveport, Louisiana, on January 16, 1822.

So, there is some confusion of where he died.  Another source said he died in Helena, Arkansas, and is buried there.

--Brock-Perry