Boyd-Lawrence County KyArchives Biographies.....Moore, Frederick 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com February 7, 2008, 1:52 am

Author: William Ely (1887)

THE MOORE FAMILY.

   FREDERICK MOORE, the founder of the house of that name in the Sandy Valley,
was of Teutonic origin, his ancestors coming to Philadelphia or its vicinity
before the Revolution. When quite a young man he married a Miss Van Horn, sister
of John Van Horn, so well and favorably known among the old settlers of the
Lower Sandy Valley. Soon after, or perhaps before, his marriage with Miss Van
Horn, he established a nail factory in the city of Philadelphia,
working-twenty-five operatives. This was before cut-nails were made. This plant
of Mr. Moore's was equal to one now working four hundred men. The War of 1812
coming on, played sad havoc with the young man's business; it broke it entirely
up. But young Moore, true to the instincts of his race, did not sit down and
lament his lot, but saved the remnant left of his hard earnings, and with the
money bought a stock of goods, hired the late John Van Horn, whose sister he had
several years previously married, to clerk for him, left his wife and their two
children (Sarah, afterwards Mrs. Poage, and later Mrs. Savage, a little girl of
two years; and Frances, afterwards Mrs. William T. Nichols, then a young infant)
with relatives in the East, and started with the goods for the "Forks" of the
Sandy, then six years before Louisa was a town, which place he reached in 1815.
He bought a large tract of land, including the plat on which the beautiful town
of Louisa now stands, but added to his possessions a much larger boundary on the
opposite side of the river, taking in the land on which now stands the town of
Cassville, West Virginia, but then Virginia.

   Mr. Moore, soon after his arrival, found himself at the head of a most
extensive and prosperous mercantile business, the principal articles of traffic
being in that root so highly prized by the Celestials, ginseng, and fur skins.

   In 1818, after an absence of three years, he sent on to Philadelphia for his
wife and two little daughters, to come on and occupy the comfortable home he had
provided for them, one-half mile below the "Forks," on the Virginia side. The
wife and children found no palace cars, as now, to journey in to reach their
future home, but endured many discomforts and tedious delays in making the long
journey. At length the mouth of the Sandy River was reached, and the tired
mother, with her two little daughters, was safely resting at the Catlett House,
the Alger of that day, at the "Mouth." When tea was spread, and the guests all
seated round the festal board, a laugh rang out from all at the innocent remark
of little Sarah, who told the servant, who passed her the bread made of Indian
meal, that she did not eat "chicken-feed." This was the first corn-bread the
little girl had ever seen, and she insisted on being supplied with bread. After
resting a night, the mother and children went on board of a packet bound for the
noted "Forks," twenty-five miles above. The packet was nothing more nor less
than a push-boat, like one sees to-day. The boat was manned by several stalwart
Sandy giants, all under the control of the now venerable William Biggs, but at
that far back time not yet out of his teens. The refined, gentlemanly bearing of
Captain William Biggs at once made Mrs. Moore his friend, which was shared by
all the Moore and Biggs family in after life. Mrs. Moore was the only lady
passenger aboard the boat. When time came on to prepare for dinner, the captain
blushingly asked his lady passenger if she would lend a helping hand in getting
up the noonday meal. The scene at the hotel, the evening before, had convinced
the young navigator that nothing but wheaten bread would be permissible to set
before such a lady as he, by his own native instinct of gentility, knew his
passenger to be. He had more than one man aboard who prided himself on getting
up the best of "corn-dodgers" or "johnny-cakes," but flour to them was as
unknown as was Indian meal to Mrs. Moore and children. They had the bliss of
eating flour-bread at weddings, and once or twice at a "hoe-down;" but how it
was made was beyond their culinary knowledge.

   Mrs. Moore at once proceeded to take her first lesson in bread-making. In her
country men baked the bread in large clay ovens; the higher class of ladies, to
which Mrs. Moore, nee Van Horn, belonged, never. When the viscous dough stuck
with pertinacity to her tapering fingers, she lost all patience, and asked the
bewildered young captain to help her out of the sad predicament her effort to be
useful had brought on. Captain Biggs hastily dipped a gourd of water from the
river, and poured the liquid upon her outstretched hands, and soon her spirits
revived as she saw no permanent harm was done.

   The little craft soon reached the "Forks," and the Moores were settled in
their home, which in after years was to be visited by as many (if not more)
distinguished people as that of any homestead in the valley. Mr. Moore prospered
as merchant, tanner, saddler, shoemaker, and farmer, and for a short time
distiller, but abandoned the latter as soon as he saw the evil effects the
poisonous liquid had upon the community.

   In 1821 Louisa was made the capital of the new county of Lawrence, and the
people of to-day owe Mr. Moore a debt of gratitude for the large-sized lots, the
broad avenues and streets, which make Louisa the beautiful little city it is. He
built a number of large brick edifices, that even shame some of the buildings
erected long since. Mr. Moore was not only a close, compact business man, but
was equally a public-spirited citizen.

   One great reason of the financial success that fell to Mr. Moore's lot may be
attributed to the fact that while a strict party man, a Whig, he let
office-seeking severely alone. Yet several offices were forced upon him—colonel
of the militia, magistrate of his district, delegate in the Legislature—trusts
that he filled with great acceptability to his constitutents in Virginia. He not
only had every one of his numerous children well educated, sending them from
home, at great expense, to seminaries or colleges, to take on the finishing
touch, but he did much to promote education for the poor of his section.

   The old red mansion of the Moore's was the stopping-place of all Methodist
preachers as long as it was occupied by the family; besides great statesmen and
lawyers were frequent guests. Mr. and Mrs. Moore never failed to liberally
supply the wants of the sick poor for miles around with dainties from their
well-supplied larder. Three sons and six daughters made happy the Moore
household. The mother and daughters were zealous Church members and Christians.
The sons inclined the same way. The father never subscribed to any religious
formula, but he acted like a Christian, in visiting the sick and administering
to their needs, helping the widow and orphan, assisting in their support, and
visiting the prisoner in jail. This great and good man died, aged ninety-two
years, in 1874 His noble wife followed him in 1881, at the age of eighty-six.
They not only left to their children a large material inheritance, but their
noble example for good during a long, well-spent life.

    Mr. Moore was at heart opposed to slavery; but as he grew rich, slaves fell
to his ownership. They were treated with great humanity. The chief manservant,
James Brown, or Uncle Jim, never left the family, but clung to the younger
generation of Moores until the day of his death, which occurred in 1885, aged
near one hundred years. When Mr. Moore and wife grew too frail longer to
continue at the head of the household, the sons and daughters agreed that the
good old servant should never want for any comfort as long as he lived. They
kept the vow, and when he died they gave his remains a Christian burial, and
wept at his departure. "Uncle Jim" was a sincere Christian.

   Ben Burk, a great admirer of Frederick Moore, told the author that once a
great scarcity of food prevailed in the latter's neighborhood, and that he could
not bear to hear of the cries of distress coming up from the poor people around
him, and handed out meat with such a lavish hand, to appease their hunger, and
that without price, that his wife had to lock the meat-house door to keep her
benevolent husband from giving away the last joint of bacon on the place.

   He had a great respect for preachers, and would notify his hands and
servants, when one. came to the house, that, he being a minister, they must use
no improper language in his hearing. While one of these gentlemen of the cloth
was visiting at the Moore mansion one day, a hand on the place used profane
language, which so offended Mr. Moore that he rebuked the man in similar
language, and called the preacher aside and begged not to blame him or any of
his family for the man's rudeness.

   Mr. and Mrs. Moore gave to the world nine children, three sons and six
daughters. They have all borne aloft, unsullied, the Moore-Van Horn escutcheon,
and, like their parents before them, are first-class citizens, and respected for
their many virtues. W. F. Moore, the oldest son, is a man of extensive reading,
and is one of the most scientific farmers of Boyd County. The youngest son and
child, Frederick Moore, Jr., is, like his oldest brother, a farmer also, but
lives in Lawrence County. His only marriageable daughter is the wife of a noted
physician of West Virginia.


Additional Comments:

[Transcriber's note: This book covers several counties in  KY and WV. It was
published in Boyd County.]

Extracted from:

THE BIG SANDY VALLEY
BY WILLIAM ELY
CATLETTSBURG, KY.: Central Methodist, 1887


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