Popenoe/Popnoe/Poppino

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James Popenoe

In addition to being a farmer like almost everybody in those days, James Popenoe was a Baptist of the hard shell variety and a politician, the latter no doubt reflecting his early upbringing in Morgantown under the influence of Col. John Evans. In 1805 he ran for the office of Coroner of Greene County, receiving 174 votes against 6 and 0 for his two opponents. He served four years.  He fought in the War of 1812 as a second lieutenant in the Ohio militia.  In 1816 he built the first brick house in Xenia.  From 1815 to 1819 he served as sheriff and collector of taxes of Greene County. In his second run, in 1817, he received 622 votes vs. 252 for his opponent.  In 1819 he was a candidate for member of the State House of Representatives.  He received 586 votes while his opponents received 334, 183, 137, and 25.  He served one term and then again was sheriff from 1823-1827.[1]

James continued his political activities into old age. In the 1840s James and his son, Peter (IV), belonged to an abolitionist branch of the Democratic Party called the Barnburners, an allusion to their determination to burn down the barn to get rid of the rats. A cartoon in a local paper showed the rodents scurrying from a burning barn with the legend:

        Old Jimmy Popenoe says to his son,

        "Astonishing, Peter, how the rats run!"[2]

In 1832 James moved to nearby Centerville, Montgomery County, Ohio where he died on August 19, 1848.[3]

As previously mentioned, during the period 1818 to 1843 he was engaged with his siblings and cousins in unsuccessful efforts to claim title to the land in New Jersey left to his father by his grandfather in 1755.  In 1820 James went back to Morgantown to find evidence to prove his age and paternity and he produced an invaluable deposition on his findings.[4]

His house burned down ca. 1836 with the loss of most of his papers.  Fortunately he had gotten his son Peter involved in the collection effort and had given him a quantity of documents and letters that have come down to us.

About 1800, James Popenoe married Jane Davis (1780-1820), daughter of Thomas Davis, and no doubt a childhood playmate in Morgantown.  They had four children: Elizabeth, Peter, Cynthia and James.

Jane Davis died in 1820 and in 1821, James married Sarah Holcomb Harpham. Sarah was the daughter of Darius and Mehitable Holcomb who had come out to Ohio from Vermont.  The Holcombs were descendants of Thomas Holcomb who came to North America in 1630 with Governor Winthrop’s fleet.  One of his descendants, Phineas Holcomb was living on the shore of Lake Champlain at the outbreak of the Revolution, and with three of his sons was captured by Indians and carried to Canada.  He and two of the sons died during this captivity, but the third returned after the close of the war.  Meanwhile, Tories had sacked and burned the family home leaving his wife to make her way through the woods with four younger children to the home of relatives. One of these children was Darius who married Mehitable, a distant cousin, and in 1813 moved to Ohio. Their daughter, Sarah, one of a large family, was born in Vermont on 14 Dec 1792 and married in Cincinnati in 1816 to Hames Harpham who died the following year.

Sarah and James Popenoe had eight children, all of whom lived to maturity. They were: Presley Martin, Judson, Willis Parkison, Albert Gallatin, Martha Jane, John Newton, Harriet, and Charles Henry. All of James Popenoe’s twelve children are discussed in The Descendants of James Popenoe.