High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Nathaniel Pope (January 5, 1784?January 22, 1850) was a politician and jurist from the U.S. state of Illinois. Pope was born in Louisville, Kentucky to a prominent family in regional politics. In 1806, he graduated from Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. He then studied law, was admitted to the bar, and settled in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, in 1804, where he commenced the practice of law in the Louisiana Territory, which had recently become part of the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase.