Researching a Maiden Name

The first person in the Moor(e) family to come to America in 1715 was William Moor.  I don’t know if he was married when he came or got married after arriving.  His wife was Martha.

Ever since I started researching this family it has been surmised that Martha’s maiden name was Anderson.  I never found a document to prove this fact.  It was stated in the book “Memorial of the Loyalist Families of William Moore, Josiah Hitchings and Robert Livingstone”, compiled by John Elliott Moore in 1898. This book is a great book naming and dating so many families but it has no sources.  The maiden name was also told to me by various other genealogists researching this same line, but no documents.

I was searching on-line recently and found an index at the New Hampshire Archives (www.sos.nh.gov/archives/nhstatepapers.html),  for probate records.  Whenever I find a new database I put in all the names in the family for that area.  I came up with two records, one for Allen Anderson and the other Martha Moor(e) from Londonderry, NH.  That was where the family was living in the early 1700’s.

I e-mailed the archives through the web site and several days later I received a reply that both Allen and Martha are mentioned in the same probate file and did I want a copy.  Of course, I said yes and received it a week later, all 12 pages of it.  There was a cost of $9 but after all these years it was worth a lot more to me.

In Allen Anderson’s will dated 11 September 1755 he says “I Give & Bequeath to my Sister Martha Moores Children George Moore, Allen Moore, Jane Cristey & Eliz Moore One third of all my Estate Either Real or Personal Excepting What is Before Bequeathed to them & their heirs or assigns forever”.

I am sure of the children’s names because in William Moor(e)’s will he bequeaths to his wife Martha and his sons George Moor, Thomas Moor, Allen Moor and William Moor.  He also mentions his daughter Betty Moor and daughter Mary Moor.  It is signed 6 November 1739 naming Allen and Samuel Anderson his only and sole Executors.  It is proved 26 Aug 1741.

I believe this confirms that Martha's maiden name is Anderson and Allen was her brother and that she was married to William Moor all of Londonderry, New Hampshire. 

His son William Moor eventually migrated to New Brunswick, Canada and founded the town of Moores Mills.

Music Passed Down Through The Generations

All of our grandchildren are musically inclined.  We have wondered where they get all the talent as Tom and I have none.

I have been reading letters written by my Moore family from 1854 through 1910.  Many mention great great grandfather Horatio Moore.  I have come to realize that his family had the music talent.  His daughters took vocal lessons, many times from their father.  Horatio and at least one daughter played the piano.  Horatio tuned pianos and work for the Bradbury Piano Manufactory in of all places Brooklyn, New York in the 1870's.  I hadn't realize he came up to New York after living in Alabama during the civil war.  Here is an excerpt from a letter written April 28, 1879.

"Jessie expects to go directly on to New York and make the first of her visits at Uncle Horatio's ....".   "Your uncle is still overseer of the Bradbury's Piano Manufactory,  he visits every department of workmen every day before dinner, and the different branches of piano making from the cases to the keyboard, and tunes all of them, keeping one in his office all the time.  The sales rooms are in New York City.  His salary was two thousand dollars per year.  It may be raised for they did not want him to return to Mobile, and since the yellow fever last summer I hear nothing about their return, and another thing, they are getting used to New York life.  It must be very different from where they were for so many years."

The pull of the south was strong though.  By 1885 they are in Savannah, Georgia, where Horatio and his son work for the Southern Music Company which is affiliated with the Ludden and Bates Piano Company.  In the directory for 1885 Horatio is listed as a piano tuner.

Anniversary of the Civil War

One hundred and fifty years ago the Civil War started in South Carolina at Fort Sumter.

Some of the Moore family had migrated to the south, from Moores Mills, New Brunswick, Canada, in the 1850's.  They were looking for a better climate for some sickly members of the family.  They found work quickly because of their expertise in the lumber milling business.

Several of the women members were prolific writers.  Most of the letters were sent up to New Brunswick, Canada to relatives.  Those relatives saved all the letters.

In a letter written from Vicksburg, Mississippi on June 28th, 1864, mention was made of our great great grandfather and his family.

"Uncle Rashe (Horatio Moore) sent his family to Marion, Mississippi, the first year of the war.  He was then living in Mobile.  George and Adelade were living there in Marion.  Uncle Rashe stayed in Mobile, Mary and the children lived with Adelade.  George was then employed by a Mr. Henderson, Uncle Williams' partner in a mill.  They lived there a year or more.  Aunt Mary then commenced housekeeping by herself in the village of Marion.  George moved then a few miles to another mill, his employer Mr. McClavin.  He was living there at the time of his death which occurred one year ago last April."

Uncle Rashe "belonged to a home Co. nearly ever since the war commenced, composed of foreigners and called the British Guards.  Foreigners up to last fall were exempt but a law was about being passed to take them all."  "His family will remain at Citronelle, Alabama with Aunt Emily who has a very large and commodious house and have everything around them comfortable.  They have between two and three hundred chickens, cows, and hogs, and plenty of corn, but very little flour is to be had in the whole country, although we have a little hard biscuit two or three times a week and those that did not have a supply of sugar and molasses on hand never saw the article.  Sugar, $7.00 per lb.; molasses, $35 per gallon, and everything nearly in the same proportion.  I suppose, to speak with surety, not half of the people in the Confederacy have anything in the world but corn bread and meat, and about half of that half just  bread, and thankful that they get even that." 

Horatio never did fight in the Civil War but he and his family lived in the midst of it all.  In a letter dated December 12, 1869 he is mentioned again.  This is after the war and everything has quieted down and life is back to normal. 
 "We had such a good time; it was such a grand treat to hear Rashe sing and Kitty accompany his voice with the piano.  Everything about them seems so nice and comfortable.  Mary keeps only a black boy for help this winter, tho' the family is pretty large - their own four juveniles and May.  The girls all go to the same school and pay $5.00 each for Nan, Bess and May.  Prof. Lamus gives Kitty her tuition.  Rashe is giving them private lessons in vocal music two evenings in a week."

Even though the family was only in the south about 10 years before the civil war they were strongly for the confederacy.  In some of letters they were asking relatives up in Canada what they thought of the war.  Unfortunately we have no letters from Canada to the south to hear their replies.