The Moore Family

Taken from An Addington/Chalfant Family History by David Vern Addington, published 1992.

Main references for this information: The Matthew Moore Family, Doris J. Murphy, Bonnie Murphy, Olive M. Murphy and Ethel Murphy Burk, 1978, privately published.

The Moore Family

Harry Vern Addington's maternal grandmother was Rebecca
Jane Moore who married Robert Wesley Feagans. The earliest
identifiable Moore ancestor of this family is Matthew Moore who
was born in January 1753 in Pettigoe in Donegal County in the
north of Ireland. The Moore family name is quite common in
Ireland and is recorded in many ancient records. Matthew
Moore married about 1775 to Sarah McDowell. Sarah was born
in September 1758 of Scottish-Irish background. One letter
describes Sarah as tall and prepossessing in appearance, neither
large nor spare in figure, quiet, and dignified in action,
benevolent by nature but unforgiving of wrong, with a character
as firm as the everlasting hills, she cast an influence on all around
her.

Matthew and Sarah immigrated to America shortly after they
were married, for their first child, Ann, was born in Philadelphia
on 6 Aug 1777. A younger brother of Matthew named Jonathan
Moore also immigrated with him. Jonathan Moore married
Elizabeth Long and had at least six children. Jonathan Moore
eventually settled his family in Bartholomew County, Indiana.
One of their sons, Hosea Moore, born 1803 was said to have been
killed at the Alamo.

One record says that Matthew Moore was an off-and-on soldier
in the Continental Army, joining up when there was trouble and
then going home when the immediate trouble subsided.
Matthew moved his family quite frequently in the next thirty
years with records finding them in Philadelphia, New Castle
County, Delaware, Chester County, Pennsylvania and Lancaster
County, Pennsylvania. From Lancaster County, Pennsylvania,
the Moore family started their westward migration in 1817.
Some of their children were grown by this time but they all
migrated except one daughter who was married and remained in
Delaware. The family halted for a year near Jamesville (believed
to be Zanesville in Muskingum County), Ohio where one
daughter died and another was left my marriage. The family
finally settled in Wayne County, Indiana in 1818.

Matthew and his oldest son David settled on a tract of land about
two miles west of Middleboro and six miles north of Richmond.
There they raised their family and saw their children married.
Matthew Moore died in February 1836 at the age of eighty-three.
Sarah then lived with her son Matthew who had moved to Darke
County, Ohio. She died there in Nov 1845. Both Matthew and
Sarah are buried in the Woodbury Quaker Meeting Cemetery
about two miles south of Whitewater, Indiana.

Matthew and Sarah (McDowell) Moore has the following
children
(1) Ann Moore, b. 6 Aug 1777, Philadelphia
probably married and remained in Delaware
(2) David Moore*, b. 6 Aug 1779, prob. Philadelphia, d. 1845,
Wayne Co., Indiana
m. c1803, Mary Wilkins
(3) Alexander Moore, b. 25 Mar 1781, nfi
(4) Mary "Isabella" Moore, b. 26 Apr 1783
died or remained in Muskingum Co., Ohio
(5) Margaret Moore, b. 19 Aug 1785, m. Gideon Garrison
(6) George Moore, b. 23 Dec 1787, nfi
(7) Sarah Moore, b. 19 Apr 1790, m. Henry Davis
(8) Hannah Moore, b. 26 Mar 1794, m. Moses Woods
(9) Jane Moore, b. 17 Oct 1796, d. 1874, Randolph Co., Indiana
m. John Bishop
(10) Robert Moore, b. 16 Sep 1799
(11) Matthew Moore, Jr., b. 31 Jul 1802, d. 4 Oct 1845, Drake Co., Ohio, dnm

All eleven of their children appear to have survived to
adulthood, quite a feat in this frontier era when childhood
diseases often took the lives of young children. Not all of these
lines have been traced but there are numerous descendants.

Mathew Moore's first born son David married Mary Wilkins,
about 1803 probably in Delaware although no marriage record
has been found. David's family accompanied his father's family
west to Wayne County, Indiana in 1817-18 and entered on land
next to his fathers. When Mathew died, his farm passed to
David.

David and Mary (Wilkins) Moore had the following children
(1) Henry W. Moore, b. 1804, Wilmington, Delaware, d. 1879,
Randolph County, Indiana
m. 10 Feb 1831, Wayne Co., Indiana, Mary Wright
(2) George Moore, b. 1806, Delaware, d. 4 Apr 1897
m. 1839, Mary Hiatt
(3) Sarah Moore, b. 1807
(4) Benjamin Moore*, b. c1810, Delaware, d. 1857, Randolph Co.,
Indiana
m. 30 Jul 1833, Wayne Co., Indiana, Hannah Wright
(5) Lydia V. Moore, b. 1812
m. John Martin
(6) Mary Moore
m. Jonathan Commons
(7) Rachel Moore
m. Eli Townsend
(8) Elizabeth J. Moore, b. 19 Sep 1821, d. 26 Feb 1885
m. 11 Nov 1845, Chandler Graves
(9) Alexander Moore, nfi

Of the children of David and Mary Moore, we known that several
migrated to Randolph County. Eli and Rachel (Moore)
Townsend settled in Stony Creek Township by 1840. George
Moore settled in West River Township and raised his family
there. Henry Moore also moved to Randolph County and farmed
there until his death in 1879. Besides farming, David Moore was
a blacksmith by trade. David Moore died in 1845 in Wayne
County. Mary (Wilkins) Moore died sometime before that date.

George Moore grew up in Wayne County and married in 1839 Mary Hiatt,
a daughter of Isaac and Hannah (Sulgrove) Hiatt. He moved to Randolph
County in 1839 and settled on forty acres of land in West River Township.
Later he received from his father and bought acreage up to a total of one
hundred and seventy-two acres. George and Mary (Hiatt) Moore had six
children Mahala, William A., Rachael, David, Martha and Henry A. Rachael
Moore married in 1846 to Alexander Feagans, a brother to Robert Wesley Feagans.
David Moore was a soldier in the Civil War serving in Company D,
147th Indiana Volunteers.

Our direct line ancestor is Benjamin Moore, who was born in
Delaware in 1810 and was a young boy when his family made
the big move west to Indiana. He grew up in Wayne County and
married Hannah Wright, the daughter of Ralph and Hannah
Wright, on 30 Jul 1833. Hannah was born in 1813 in North
Carolina and her sister Mary married Henry Moore, Benjamin's
brother. Benjamin was a school teacher and a splendid wood
workman. He made furniture of high quality. About 1848, he
moved his family to Huntington County where they are recorded
in the 1850 census. Sometime after that they must have moved
back to Randolph County to a small farm in White River
Township near where his brothers Henry and George were
living. Benjamin died in 1857 at the age of forty-seven from
consumption (tuberculosis). Hannah evidently remarried in 1858
or 1859 to a John Morrison, 14 years her junior, since she is listed
in the 1860 Randolph County census as Hannah Morrison, with
children Rebecca J, William H., Mary Ann, and George A. Moore
in the household. However, by the 1870 census, she is listed
again as Hannah Moore with only son George still in the
household. Hannah died in 1881 and is buried besides her first
husband, Benjamin, in Buena Vista Cemetery.

Benjamin and Hannah (Wright) Moore had the following
children
(1) Lydia Wright Moore, m. Robert Liverton
(2) Jonathan Wright Moore, b. 1836, d. 1884
(3) Armeda Ann Moore, b. 1841, d. 1907
m. ? Fulhart
m. 2nd James Spray
m. 3rd B. P. Cougill
(4) Rebecca Jane Moore*, b. 10 Oct 1842, d. 20 May 1878
m. 17 Jul 1862, Randolph Co., IN, Robert Wesley Feagans
(5) William Henry Moore, b. 1844, m. Clara Mercer
(6) Mary Hannah Moore, b. 1848, d. 1939
m. William Wallace Phelps
m. 2nd James Moune
m. 3rd Isaac Mills
m. 4th W. W. Wiles
(7) George Arthur Moore, b. 1851, d. 1937
m. Malissa Small
m. 2nd Olive Mendenhall

Mary Hannah Moore married William Wallace Phelps and they
had seven children. One daughter, India Wilma Phelps, married
in 1894 to George Thomas Larkin Murphy. They had eight
children and four of their daughters, Doris, Bonnie, Olive and
Ethel, wrote a genealogy on the Mathew Moore family from
whence most of this information is taken.

Rebecca Jane Moore married Robert Wesley Feagans on 17 Jul 1862
in Randolph County. Wesley's first wife, Elizabeth Starbuck, had born him one
daughter and then died about a year later. Wesley and Rebecca Jane (Moore)
Feagans had three daughters, Dora Elizabeth, Ella and Pearl. Ella married
Orville Sayers (or Sears) and they had five children. Pearl married a Powell and
they later moved to Michigan and there are no known children. Rebecca
Jane (Moore) Feagans died on 20 May 1878 and is buried in Buena Vista Cemetery.

Banjamin and Hannah (Wright) Moore Gravestone
Buena Vista Cemetery
Randolph Co., IN 1991 (not included in book)


George Moore (from Bowen, 1914)


Mary (Hiatt) Moore (from Bowen 1914)


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