From - Wed Apr 22 08:52:16 1998

CLEARFIELD COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA - JAMES MOORE BIOGRAPHY

File contributed by:
Mark "Stock" Meinhart meinhartstock@yahoo.com.


                       JAMES MOORE

   Was born January 8th, 1760, in Sadsbury township, Chester
county, Pa, and was the son of Andrew and Rebecca Moore.
He married Lydia, daughter of Abraham and Anna Sharpless, in the
year 1785, and settled in Sadsbury.
   He was a miller, but did not own property.  In the year 1795 he
removed with his family and settled in Half Moon, Centre county,
Pa., where he owned and improved a small farm.
   He had eight children, namely: Abraham, Esther, Lydia, Anna,
Jeremiah, Andrew, Rebecca and James, who all grew to be men and
women.  He and his son Jeremiah in the spring of 1810, crossed the
Allegheny Mountains with their axes on their shoulders, made an
improvement and built a cabin on a tract of land on which Pennville
now stands-his daughter Lydia coming with them to keep house.
   The country was then comparatively a wilderness, except along the
river, where there were a few settlers.
   Dr. Coleman had settled on an adjoining tract of land the year
previous, and had some improvements made.  He was a Scotchman, and
gave the place the name of Grampian Hills, saying that it very much
resembled the Grampian Mountains of Scotland, and which name it
has since retained.
   The great want of a saw and grist-mill being soon felt by the
settlers, induced the subject of this sketch to erect a saw-mill in
the year 1814, and in 1816 he built a grist-mill.  The building was
of logs, with one run of the country stones, made from rock got on
the farm of Joanathan Evans, near Curwensville, and coarse bolting
cloth.  This mill seemed to meet the wants of the settlers, who came
a great distance to it.
   He was a consistent member of the Society of Friends, and trained
up his family in orderly and industrial habits.  They all married,
and settled near him, except Abraham, his oldest son, who died in
Half Moon, two years previous to their removal to Clearfield.
   He was the pioneer in the establishing of West Branch Meeting of
Friends, and donated the land to the Friends Society for a meeting
house and burial ground.  A comfortable frame meeting house was
built there on in 1823.  James Moore departed this life on the 17th
of September, 1834.
   His daughter Esther married Thomas Fenton, in the year 1818, and
settled on land adjoining the Moore tract.  Anna married Jesse
Spencer, and Lydia married Joseph Spencer, in the year 1811.  They
settled on land, and made the first improvement in what is known as
the Spencer neighborhood.
   Jeremiahs married Sussannah Shivery, in the year 1819, settled at
the mill, soon after built a new grist and saw-mill, and laid out
the village of Pennville.  His wife died in 1826, and he married
Sarah Evans, daughter of Jonathan Evans, in 1827.
   He applied steam power to his grist mill in the year 1838, and ran
it for many years, being the first mill run by steam in the county.
He died in 1873.
   Andrew married Elizabeth Davis in the year 1822, and settled and
cleared up the farm on which he is now living.  He, with his brother
Jeremiah, bought a tract of land in what is now Union Township, and
in the years 1830 and 31 built a grist and saw-mill.  The saw mill has
since been rebuilt, and the grist mill has since been enlarged and
repaired, but part of the building now standing is the original mill,
and is known at the Rockton Mills.
   Rebecca married Joseph Davis, and settled on the Caleb Davis lands
in 1823.  James married Jane Shivery and settled on the northwest
end of the Moore tract, in the year 1826.  He was a surveyor and
agent, and died in 1847.

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