University of Virginia Library

MOORE.

John Moore was appointed the executor of Matthew Jouett
in 1745, the same year the county of Albemarle was organized.
It is likely his first wife was Matthew Jouett's
daughter. He was evidently a man of means and fine business
capacity. At different times he owned more than five
thousand acres in the county, including Lot No. Three, on
which the first court at the new county seat was held,
several of the outlots around Charlottesville, a thousand

acres on Meadow Creek, and more than thirteen hundred east
of the South West Mountain, on part of which stood his
home, subsequently the home of Reuben Lindsay. From the
fact that it was through his land east of the town the road to
the river was made, it is surmised the name of Moore's was
given to the ford, which crossed just below the site of the
Free Bridge. He was a large landholder also in Louisa, to
which county he removed after selling his residence in Albemarle.
He died in 1785. He appears to have been joined
in matrimony the second time with Martha, daughter of the
elder John Harvie. His children were John, Edward, James,
Matthew, Frances, the wife of John Henderson Jr., and Elizabeth,
the wife first of Tucker Woodson, and secondly of
Major Joseph Crockett. It is thought that William Moore,
who married Mary, daughter of Colonel John Marks and
Mrs. Lucy Lewis, and lived in Georgia, was also his son by
the last marriage.

John was one of his father's executors, and probably lived
in Louisa. Matthew received from his father a farm on the
borders of Louisa, which he and his wife Letitia sold in 1774
to Rev. Matthew Maury, and removed South. Edward
occupied a position of considerable prominence, but unfortunate
habits seem to have ruined both him and his estate.
He was a magistrate, and in the decade of 1790 represented
the county in the House of Delegates. His plantation of five
hundred acres, which he bought from John Harvie, lay on
the Gordonsville Road below Keswick, and in 1805 was sold
under deed of trust to William D. Meriwether. Overwhelmed
with debt, stripped of his property, and declared insane in
1807, he was by order of Court placed in the Asylum, where
he died the next year. His wife was Mildred, daughter of
Colonel Charles Lewis Jr., of Buck Island. His son, John
Lewis, was left by his uncle Isham Lewis, a thousand acres
of land on Blue Run, on the Barboursville Road, which he
sold in 1807 to James Barbour. A daughter Ann is mentioned,
to whom her brother John Lewis was appointed
guardian, and a son Charles, who was bound as apprentice
for four years to William Watson.

Another family named Moore resided in the county, the
descendants of which still remain in considerable numbers,
though bearing different names. Contrary to the usual
course of emigration, three brothers, Richard, William and
Stephen, came to Albemarle from Person County, North Carolina,
sometime before the Revolutionary War; yet it is said by
relatives now living in North Carolina, that the family first
emigrated thither from Albemarle. Richard lived on the
head waters of the south fork of Hardware, not far from the
Cove. He was twice married, first to Letitia Martin, and
secondly to Keturah, daughter of William Austin, and died
in 1809. He had twelve children, the most of whom, it is
believed, removed to Tennessee. William lived at first near
Richard, but afterwards in the North Garden, on the place
recently owned by the late Garrett White. He married Mary,
daughter of William Gooch, and died in 1818. His son,
Dyer, was a captain in the war of 1812, and removed to Tennessee,
where he married Mary, daughter of James Lewis.
Stephen was a man of industry and sound judgment, acquired
a large estate, and died in 1833. His home was in North
Garden, the same place recently occupied by his grandson,
William Durrett. His wife, it is said, was a Miss Royster,
and his children Sarah, the wife of Marcus Durrett, Caroline,
the wife of John White, and Eliza, the wife of Henry Carter
Moore, a kinsman also from North Carolina. H. Carter
Moore resided where Anderson Rothwell now lives, and died
in 1867. The only son in his large family, Shepherd, died
without children in 1871.