William Clayton Poe is a representative of one of the early pioneer families of Hood county, Texas, and a descendant of ancestors who settled in America in colonial days. Stephen Poe, his great-grandfather, was a soldier in the revolutionary war, going into that war with his nine brothers and rendering valiant service until the struggle was ended. He and his brothers became separated in the war and never afterward saw or heard of each other. He settled in the south, where he was a respected citizen and where his posterity has occupied useful and honored positions in life. An uncle of W.C. Poe served in the Mexican war.

William Clayton Poe was born in Louisiana, May 20, 1848, son of William and Elizabeth (Stuart) Poe, the former a native of Georgia and the latter of South Carolina. His parents were married in Alabama in 1835, resided for a time in Louisiana, and from the latter state came in 1848 to Texas, locating first in Rusk county. Two years later they came to Wood county, where they remained seven years. At the exportation of that time the family, consisting of parents and seven children, started for San Saba county, but before they reached their destination the father died. The widow and children went on and made settlement in San Saba county, where they were for ten years engaged in stock-raising and farming. Owing to the many depredations committed by the Indians there about that time, they left that part of the state and came to Hood county, where they located and where they have since figured as representative citizens. The aged mother, now eighty-one years old, is kindly cared for in the home of her son William C., from whom she has never been separated since the death of her husband.

The immediate subject of our sketch, William C. Poe, was an infant when brought to this state and knows no other home than a Texas one. In his boyhood days he attended for a short time the subscription schools of the frontier community in which they resided, where he learned little more than to read and write; but by home reading and study later in life he acquired a wide range of useful information, and keeps himself well posted on current topics. On arriving at the age of twenty-one he began life on his own responsibility, his training and experience standing him in good stead, and he then launched out as a farmer and stock dealer. In 1880 he purchased his present farm, one hundred and fifty-four acres, to the cultivation and care of which he has since devoted his energies and with marked success, his place now being well improved and giving evidence of the intelligence that has been the back of the labor here expended.

Mr. Poe is of a generous and public spirited nature, interested in all that goes to promote the welfare of his community. In politics he is a Democrat. Socially he is identified with the Masonic order, having membership in Granbury Lodge, No. 392, A.F. & A.M.

He was married November 25, 1877, to Miss Allie A. Roach, a native of Tennessee, but reared from childhood in Texas, daughter of James and Malinda (Cornell) Roach. It was in 1847 that the Roach family came to this state, their settlement being in Red River county, where the parents died.

Mr. and Mrs. Poe are consistent members of the Methodist Episcopal church.

History of Texas, 1896, Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Co.

1999 HOOD COUNTY TEXAS GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY