Collection (1766-2010) consists of items related to the Augustus Moore (June 8, 1803-March 23, 1851) family of Chowan and Halifax Cos., N.C., his children Augustus Minton Moore, William Armistead Moore, Henrietta Moore Sutton, Susan Augustus Moore Righton, Mary Elizabeth Moore, Alfred Moore and John Armistead Moore, and the descendants of John Armistead Moore. Included are account books, legal records, land transactions, estate records, correspondence, clippings, and autograph books (1855, 1865) belonging to family members who attended Miss Willard's Female Seminary in Troy, N.Y., and Patapsco Female Institute in Ellicott City, Maryland. Also included are identified photographs (cartes de visite, tintypes, cased pictures, albums) of the Moore, Gilliam, and Skinner, families, religious books such as Roman Catholic Missals, Episcopal Books of Common Prayer and Bibles, UNC-Chapel Hill diplomas (1824), and items related to the 1878 Exposition in Paris, France.
The Moore family of Chowan County, North Carolina, consists of Augustus Moore (8 June 1803-23 March 1851), his wife Susan Maria Jordan Armistead Moore (23 April 1812-17 October 1884), and their descendants. These descendants include the Rowe family who donated the collection. Augustus and Susan's children were William Armistead Moore (27 July 1831-20 December 1884), Mary Elizabeth Moore (14 November 1833-11 June 1842), Susan Augustus Moore [Righton] (9 January 1836-23 February 1909), Henrietta Moore [Sutton] (30 January 1838-14 February 1861), Sophia Amelia Wright Moore (2 May 1840-26 January 1841), Augustus Minton Moore (7 December 1841-24 April 1902), Mary Elizabeth Moore (second of the same name, 24 April 1844-18 November 1927), John Armistead Moore (28 October 1846-4 February 1888), and Alfred Moore (12 February 1849-10 July 1884).
Charles Moore, the father of Augustus Moore, owned enslaved persons according to the inscription in his family Bible, and it is likely that they were passed on to his descendants. The family sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War, and Henrietta Moore's husband was killed in action at Spotsylvania, Virginia. Several Moore family members joined the Daughters of the Confederacy, including Carrie Helen Moore, Mary Elizabeth Moore, and Mary Righton Moore Matthew. The Moores owned a significant amount of land, including the Poplar Neck plantation in Chowan County, and records of their land deals can be found in this collection.
Augustus Moore was a prominent legal figure in the area, graduating from the University of North Carolina in 1824 and receiving his license to practice law the following year. He presided over numerous cases and distinguished himself enough to be appointed judge of the Superior Court in 1848, only to resign that same year. His son William Armistead Moore followed him into the legal profession, graduating from the University of North Carolina in 1848 and practicing law soon afterward. He practiced until 1861, when he began his military career fighting for the Confederacy in the Civil War. After the war, he dabbled in local and state politics until he was appointed judge of the Superior Court in 1871. While serving as a judge, he was chosen by President Rutherford B. Hayes as an Honorary Commissioner to the 1878 Exposition Universelle in Paris. He never married or had children.
Augustus Minton Moore and his brother John Armistead Moore were also highly respected lawyers in North Carolina. Augustus Minton's first wife, Frances Jones Moore, died of complications due to childbirth after having their second child. He remarried to Elizabeth Margaret Warren Moore, who also died due to childbirth. Augustus Minton then married Mary Bond Moore and had no more children.
Susan Augustus Moore, sister of Augustus Minton Moore and John Armistead Moore married Stark Armistead Wright Righton and they had daughter Mary "Marie" Elizabeth Armistead Moore Righton (November 29, 1870-January 10, 1918). Marie married Patrick Matthew from Scotland.
John Armistead had six children with his wife, Mary Frances Skinner Moore, including John Augustus (December 19, 1878-November 15, 1947), Mary Elizabeth "Lizzie" (July 30, 1882-February 2, 1968), and Caroline "Carrie" Helen (February 2, 1885-April 30, 1958), all of whom produced a large number of the papers in this collection. John Augustus Moore, Sr., married Mabel Cannady Vann and they had daughters Elizabeth Vann Moore and Mary Skinner Moore and son John Augustus Moore, Jr. Elizabeth Vann Moore (3 February 1912-1 January 2010) was an accomplished local historian and genealogist in Edenton, NC. Her professional papers, related to her work as a local historian and genealogist, can be found in Manuscript Collection #1215, while most of her personal correspondence is found in this collection. John Augustus Moore, Jr. (16 December 1917-28 August 1982) also features significantly in this collection. He attended the University of North Carolina, North Carolina State University, and the University of Pennsylvania, and served in World War II. He married Margaret McLaurin Parsley Adams and they had a son John Augustus Moore. Mary Skinner Moore (13 July 1913-18 June 2014) married Dr. Carter Redd Rowe (30 August 1906-25 June 2001) and they had son Carter Redd Rowe, Jr., the donor of this collection.
The Moore women were also well-educated. Susan M.J.A. Moore attended the Salem Female Academy in Salem, NC, and her daughters and granddaughters attended the Patapsco Female Institute in Ellicott City, Maryland, the Troy Female Seminary in Troy, New York, and Saint Mary's School in Raleigh, NC. The Salem Female Academy was established in 1772. Susan M.J.A. Moore was educated there in the 1820s, after it was strictly associated with the Moravian church and before it began offering college-level courses. It is now known as the Salem Academy and College and is both a boarding high school and a college. The Patapsco Female Institute was open from 1834 to 1891 as a girls' finishing school and later served as a hospital, a private home, and a nursing home. It is now a partially reconstructed historical site. Mary Skinner Moore Rowe (daughter of John Augustus Moore) attended the Patapsco Institute in the late 1860s. The Troy Female Seminary was founded by Emma Willard in 1814 and is still a girls' high school known as the Emma Willard School. Henrietta Moore [Sutton] attended in the late 1850s. Saint Mary's School was founded in 1842 and is associated with the Episcopal Church. It formerly operated as Saint Mary's College, but is now Saint Mary's School again and educates girls at the high school level. Carrie Helen Moore graduated from Saint Mary's in 1904.
Sources:
This collection contains material related to the Moore family of Chowan County, N.C., and allied families including, among others, the Armisteads, Gilliams, Skinners, Rightons, Rowes, Picots, and Matthews. Included are correspondence, land records, legal and estate documents, photographs, a photograph album, autograph books, account books, clippings, personal Bibles, Books of Common Prayer, and Catholic Missals, diplomas, and ephemera.
The earliest items in the collection are an indenture from 1766 between Benjamin Scarbrough of Perquimans County and Joshua Skinner (whose descendants married into the Moore family), having to do with a plot of land in Perquimans County and a document from 1791 announcing the sale of the estate of William Armistead, the grandfather of Susan Maria Jordan Armistead Moore. His estate included enslaved persons, schooners Priscilla, Ostrich and Little-Dick, livestock, herring seines, blacksmith's and joiner's tools, and a variety of goods.
Augustus Moore material includes land records (1819-1842), notes related to ownership of the Poplar Neck Plantation in Chowan County, correspondence, his law license (1827), his will (1847), and photographs. Other material concerns his wife Susan Maria Jordan Armistead Moore and their son William Armistead Moore and includes photographs, correspondence and clippings. In a letter written in 1862 from Poplar Neck Plantation, Susan discusses losses of enslaved persons, crops and animals to privateers and Union men in Gates County, an underground mail system, and the site of gunboats in Edenton. In an undated letter she describes separate 4th of July celebrations held by African Americans and white citizens. William was appointed an Honorary Commissioner by President Rutherford B. Hayes to the 1878 Exposition Universelle Internationale held in Paris and documents and a commemorative medal from the exposition are found here. There is also an 1875-1876 letterpress book belonging to William.
The next section of this collection deals with the Charles Moore, the Rightons, the Matthews, and siblings Henrietta Moore Sutton, Susan Augustus Moore Righton, Augustus Minton Moore (and his second wife Elizabeth Margaret Warren Moore), Alfred Moore and Mary Elizabeth Moore. Photocopies of pages in the "Family Record" portion of Charles Moore's Bible list enslaved persons by name born between 1786 and 1833, photocopies of a page found in the same Bible lists enslaved persons born between 1814 and 1819, and a photocopy of Elizabeth B. Newby's 1854 will (of Perquimans County) mentions enslaved persons by name.
Matthew documents include Patrick and Mary's obituaries, a letter and will concerning Euphemia Matthew of Newburgh, Scotland, and extensive information (1892) concerning a trust (1875) left by Miss Nicol of Newburgh to relatives in New Zealand. Information is given about Troy Female Seminary in New York that Henrietta Moore attended, and Elizabeth M. Warren Moore material includes a photograph, land records, and a letter from C. W. Skinner discussing life at Confederate Fort Fisher in North Carolina and mentioning the names of recently exchanged loved ones.
Material related to Augustus Minton Moore includes account books, letters (1879) between him and W. R. Capehart relative to Capehart's threat to kill a woman if she married Moore, correspondence printed in a newspaper (1871) that almost led to a duel with W. D. Pruden, Jr., documents concerning his candidacy for District Attorney and Superior Court judgeship, and his May 1, 1865, statement agreeing not to take up arms against the government.
Mary Elizabeth Moore's material includes correspondence, clippings, land records, an autograph book, obituaries and estate paperwork, and a Missal and Catholic manual of prayers. Two letters (1858-1859) with her papers are written by an earlier M. E. Moore and talk about the Opheleton Institute and possible Edenton sites for one.
Another sibling of Augustus Minton Moore is John Armistead Moore who married Mary Frances Skinner Moore. Their materials include correspondence, record of the sale of Poplar Neck plantation (1904), tax receipts, obituaries and estate records, account books, penmanship course books (1888, undated), Reflection on Life by John A. Moore, 1865 autograph album, artifacts from a laptop desk, and a drawing pad and Book of Common Prayer from Mary's time as a student at Patapsco Institute in 1866. There is a lot of material here related to the life of their daughter Caroline "Carrie" Helen Moore.
Carrie Moore attended St. Mary's School in Raleigh, N.C., and there are essays and exams here from her years there (1902-1904) and her 1904 senior class yearbook The Muse. Other material includes correspondence and a history related to St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Littleton, N.C., Milady's Own Book (a cookbook put out by the Women's Auxiliary of the Holy Innocents Church in Henderson, N.C.), estate papers, her personal 1903 edition of the Book of Common Prayer and Hymnal, a circa 1896 Bagster's Teachers' Bible, a 1920 hymnal from St. Alban's Church, and a gold fountain pen. Filed with her papers is an autograph album belonging to a Carrie but with the signatures dating to the 1880s, it probably belonged to Carrie's Aunt Caroline Wood Skinner [Pigot] who was also called "Carrie."
Carrie Moore's sibling John Augustus Moore married Mabel Cannady Vann and they had a son named John Augustus Moore, Jr. There is a large amount of material here documenting John A. Moore Jr.'s life, especially related to his education at UNC-Chapel Hill (1935-1939), post graduate work at Wharton School of Commerce at the University of Pennsylvania (1939-1941), World War II service in the U.S. Army Air Force (1941-1945) continuing into post war 1946, and his service in the U.S. Air Force from December 1950 through January 1953 when he was called up from the Reserves. Included in his materials is correspondence spanning the years 1928 to 1982. A very interesting communication he received in 1928 includes a postcard of the 1925 crash of the rigid airship USS Shenandoah near Caldwell, Ohio, along with a small piece of one of the airship's gas bags. A small number of letters are related to the death of his father John Augustus Moore, Sr., and reference his work in the textile industry with the Henderson and Harriet Cotton Mills, Patterson Mills in Roanoke Rapids, N.C., Sterling Cotton Mills of Franklinton, N.C. (where he was president), and Edenton Cotton Mills.
Documents related to John A. Moore, Jr.'s educational life at UNC-Chapel Hill include his involvement in making arrangements for the Glenn Miller band in 1939, commencement programs, newsletters and programs related to the Beta Chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon and the Order of the Gimghouls; University of Pennsylvania items included commencement program and his 1941 thesis related to minimum wage and carded yarn mills; and North Carolina State University items (1947, 1959) include coursework and certificates.
His military service is documented through his military personnel records, diaries (1942-1945), correspondence, Air Force publications, photographs, and ephemera. Air Force publications include issues of The New Okinawan (1945), Sakugawa Sentinel (1945) published by the 8th Air Force, 8th Air Force Pine Tree Poop (1945-1946), and the Super-Fort News Bulletin (1944-1946) put out by the XX Bomber Command. Materials related to his service in Kashmir and Japan in late 1945 include a ration card, business cards for textile businesses in Srinagar, Kashmir, Japanese yen, and a letter containing yen to be invested in silk. Other military-related items relate to service at HQ Basic Training Center in Kearns, Utah, and Pinetree Army Air Base in Okinawa.
This collection contains a lot of material related to the life of Elizabeth Vann Moore, sister of John Augustus Moore, Jr., and Mary Skinner Moore Rowe. She was a noted local historian and genealogist living in Edenton, N.C. and her voluminous research material can be accessed in manuscript collection #1215 in this repository. The material found here concerns her personal life and relationships with her family. Her voluminous correspondence covers the 1910s to 2009 and begins with her childhood. Elizabeth Vann Moore's correspondence consists of greeting cards and letters from her early life, school days, years teaching, and life in Edenton, N.C. Topics are primarily related to daily life such as news regarding other family members and friends, progress in school, activities at Chunn's Cove Camp for Girls in Asheville, N.C.; life while a student at Sweet Briar College and at UNC-Chapel Hill where she received a BA in English in 1933; teaching at All Saints College in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and at St. Catherine's School in Westhampton in Richmond, Virginia; and completing her MA at Columbia University in 1938. Other topics include payment of bills, Christmas, planning visits, descriptions of life during World War II, descriptions of vacations, updates on religious events and funds, memories of school days, and the Sterling Cotton Mill (in which John Augustus Moore, Jr. was heavily involved). Senders or recipients of Elizabeth's letters are often family members, especially her mother Mabel Vann Moore, father John Augustus Moore, and her brother and sister. Others represented or mentioned include brother-in-law Carter Redd Rowe, nephews John, Carter Jr., and Richard Rowe, Martha Jane Griffin, Virginia Griffin, Lily Brooke Powell, A.D. Williams, David Warren, Jr., Mrs. G. DeWitt Williamson, Eleanor Vann Rose, Dr. Martin, Emily Gary, George B. Holmes (rector, St. Paul's Episcopal in Edenton), the Picot family, and Miss H. F. Washington. World War II correspondence from Dr. Carter Rowe, Sr., documents his service at HQ Basic Training Center in Kearns, Utah, a hospital in Australia, and in a hospital on the equator with patients being flown in aboard C54 ambulance planes.
Post-WWII correspondence includes a January 1, 1950, letter describing being stuck on a train that got trapped by snow slides for two and a half days in the Frasier River Canyon near Yale in British Columbia. A June 7, 1955 letter describes a female friend's solo seven week trek through Mexico and the people she encountered and the celebration of Easter in Guadalajara. Other letters of interest include one containing November 14-18, 1963, clippings from The Boston Herald chronicling the anti-segregation protest in Williamston, N.C., led by twelve clergymen from Boston, MA; several (1965-1967) from Junius H. Rose when he was Superintendent of Greenville City Schools and later Director of Pitt County Civil Defense Council; one (1981) containing notes on the founding of St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Littleton, N.C.; and letters (1968) from her nephew John Rowe while at Davidson College, and while running a day camp with other American young people in Roddickton, Newfoundland, about which he comments on the local lumber economy. John also comments on hippies in Boston. In a May 22, 1969, letter from Chestnut Hill, MA, the writer fears that people are arming themselves in Roxbury and quotes from a Dean Munro graduation speech.
This collection contains numerous photographs and a few negatives. Most images are black and white, but a few are in color. The oldest photographs found here are the daguerrotypes, ambrotypes, and tintypes, many of which are in cases. Other types of photographs represented here are cyanotypes, and cartes de visite, as well as modern 20th century snapshots. The topics of the images are usually family and friends and sometimes favorite teachers, but some are of houses such as the Moore home in Edenton, the Brodie house in Henderson, N.C., and the Moore home in Littleton. Many of the tintypes and cartes de visite came from a photograph album dated 1907 that belonged to Mary Frances Skinner Moore. Several of the images (including one tintype) are of Mary's classmates from her time at Patapsco Institute in 1865-1866, Sophia and Iriene Worrell (or Norrell) of New York and "Pinky" Worrell (or Norrell). There are three pictures of men in Confederate uniform including Augustus Minton Moore (cased ambrotype) and Jule Gilliam or Judge Henry A. Gilliam. Three pictures include African American women who are referred to as "nurses." A tintype of three Moore and Gilliam children taken in the yard of the courthouse in Halifax also include "Pocahontas the nurse," another photograph includes Carrie Helen Moore and Bettie Moore and Cilla who "nursed C. H." and a third photograph (1941) is of Samuel Thome (or Thorne) Patterson, Jr., at age 4 with a nurse.
The Moore family appears to have been a very religious family--mostly Episcopal except for some Roman Catholic relatives who had married into the family. This collection contains numerous Bibles, prayer books, and hymnals, many of which are inscribed with the names of the owners. In particular, Carrie Helen Moore and Mary Elizabeth Moore were very active members of St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Littleton NC. There are photographs of St. Alban's Church plus correspondence, bulletins, and clippings. Topics include a history of the church, the dedication of the organ, a surprise party held for Mary Elizabeth Moore, an obituary for Rev. Francis Joyner, and a clipping titled "'Live Right' is belief of Littleton Negro Pastor and Ex-Bricklayer."
The collection contains many postcards, most dating between 1905 and 1917, which come from other countries as well as the United States. Domestic locations include Florida, New York, coastal North Carolina, Kittrell NC, Virginia, Baltimore, Delaware, Tennessee, New Orleans, Hampton VA, El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, Corpus Christi in Texas, and Columbia SC. More exotic places are also represented, such as Edinburgh, Rome, and Rio de Janiero. The majority of these postcards were written by Moore family members to relatives or friends describing vacations or business trips. A few are for Christmas, Valentine's Day, and Easter, although most of the greeting cards can be found in correspondence folders.
Among many artifacts in this collection are a number of gold pens and pencils, items related to the 1878 Universal Exposition in Paris including a brass commemorative medal, a rosary, an autograph book owned by Henrietta Moore in 1855 when she attended Troy (Willard) Female Seminary in New York, and a glass and metal soldier's canteen (1861?).
A box of oversize materials contains the aforementioned 1766 indenture between Benjamin Scarbrough and Joshua Skinner, Augustus Moore's 1825 application to practice law in N.C., applications by William A. Moore to practice law in N.C. (1850s) and his appointment as a Superior Court judge in 1871, document with presidential seal for William A. Moore's appointment as a commissioner at the Exposition in Paris (1878), and documents written by William A. Moore and Henry De Berniere Hooper of Edenton during a public feud they were involved in (1880-1881). Also included are many formerly framed diplomas for Carrie Helen Moore (1904) from St. Mary's School, and for William A. Moore (1848) and Augustus Moore (1824) from the University of North Carolina. There is also a very interesting 1843 letter from Augustus Minton Moore in Edenton written to his wife at Nags Head where she and family members were vacationing. He discusses his travels by packet boat, stage coach, and horseback to get home from Nags Head, describes recent wheat sales in Baltimore and what affected the lower prices he received, and mentions some "servants" (probably enslaved persons) by name who had been recently ill.
More oversize documents can be found in two oversize folders. One folder contains deeds, a blueprint with revisions (1921) for a house in Littleton, N.C., belonging to Mrs. M. S. Moore, NS an 1882 issue of The Albemarle Enquirer newspaper. Articles written by William Armistead Moore are found in an 1878 issue of The Carthaginian newspaper of Carthage, N.C., and an 1877 issue of the Raleigh, N.C, newspaper The Observer, plus there is a clipping of an 1880 speech he made upon becoming president of the Republican State Convention. A non-family item in this folder is a service record for a Japanese sailor that was found in New Guinea in April 1943 and was transcribed at BTC #5 at Kearns, Utah.
The other oversize folder contains Carrie Helen Moore's 1904 certificate of completion of a piano course at St. Mary's School and a 1913 certificate of her election to the United Daughters of the Confederacy which includes information on the Confederate service of John Armistead Moore. Also found here are World War II era military publications including Pacific Stars and Stripes (January and December issues in 1945, and January 1946 issues), a July 12, 1945 issue of Roundup (published in Delhi, India), a Yank magazine May 25, 1945 issue (Western Pacific edition published in Saipan) and a Yank October 10, 1945 issue published in South Japan.
Gift of Carter R. Rowe, Jr.
Processing completed by Emily DiBiase on November 4, 2019. Revised by Martha Elmore November 2020.
Literary rights to specific documents are retained by the authors or their descendants in accordance with U.S. copyright law.