Poul was born on 13 October 1790, a son of Peder Worm and Appolone Dorothea Worm (no. 07). The 1801 census indicates that Poul, his mother and his older brother were living with their uncle Jørgen (no. 09) in Odder. Poul later became a clerk on the island of St. Thomas in what was then the Danish West Indies. According to a story told by his great-great- granddaughter Martha in 1920, as a child he wanted to be a sailor. After his church confirmation, he went to sea on a ship that was going to the West Indies. However, he became quite seasick, and when they reached the Danish West Indies, the captain advised him to stay on St. Thomas and rest until the ship returned two weeks later on its way home. But the ship never turned up. He ended up marrying Anna Dorothea Worm (née Mørch), a woman who was presumably either the daughter of a freed slave or a freed slave herself. Her name appears on a list of freed blacks in a Danish West Indies slave list from 1831-32 as having three children together with “P.F. Worm” (at that time, Poul and Anna’s oldest son had been sent to Denmark). There are records of a Danish slaveowner named Mørch, so Anna could have been the daughter of a Danish father and a slave. (Four children: nos. 56–59.)
