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John and Polly’s eleven children were:
II) FANNIE, Obadiah and Winney’s second child, born about 1795, married Isaac Deason, (1788-?): one child, Benjamin Franklin Deason (1822-1876). He married first, Louisa T. Ray, (~1829-~1864) on Feb. 19, 1846 in Autauga Co.: eleven children, Josiah W. (1847-1853), Samuel A. (1848 -?), Mary E. (1849-1888), M. D. (1851-1852), William Alfonso (1852 -?), I. G. (1854-1955), Sarah Ann Frances (1856-1890), Isaac Monroe (1857-1934), Thomas Jefferson (1859-1890), Jefferson Davis (1860-1947), and Tillman Jackson (1862-1933). He married second Louisa Dallas Perryman and had three children, Elijah Benjamin (1872-1935), SeLemmie Dicie (1873-1914), and Franklin LaFayette (1876-?). III) LAODECIA, “Dicy” (pronounced DEEsee by the Moore’s, per Cecil Little), Obadiah and Winney’s third child, born in 1796 and died in May of 1880, married Allen Ray (1798-1870), son of Samuel Ray. Dicy and her brother John lived near each other all their life, and alternatively cared for their parents, Obadiah and Winney in their homes. Dicy and Allen Ray and had four children:
IV) JESSE, Obadiah and Winney’s fourth child, born about 1801, went to Tennessee with brother Levi. Both men later left about the same time, Jesse to a farm about two miles south of Fourney, in Kaufman Co., Texas. He had four known children, William, Richard, Jesse Jr. and John- no information on their children. V) LEVI, Obadiah and Winney’s fifth child (pronounced LEEvee by the Moore’s per Cecil Little) born February 25, 1802. His birth year is 1805 in other sources includinghis own statement in the 1850 Leake Co. MS census, but 1802 on his tombstone. Levi went to Tennessee with brother Jesse, then back to Alabama living near Selma, across the Alabama River from Autauga. Levi and Martha left Alabama for Leake Co., Mississippi, where Martha was unhappy, moved back to Alabama until 1844, then Mississippi to stay by 1846. Levi married first, Martha Johnson (1807- aft. 1846) in Alabama, Dan Johnson’s daughter: thirteen children,
Levi Moore married second, Mary Elizabeth Wilkerson (1836-?), William and Carolina Summers (Hall) Wilkerson’s daughter: eight children. 14) Levi (1856-?); 15) Mary (1858-?) married John Allen; 16) Abigale (1860-?) married E. S. “Pink” Moore; 17) Nancy (1864-?) married Frank Moore; 18) William (1865-?) married Miss Kelly; 19) Isaac Jefferson (1867-?) married Nancy Ann Ellenberg; 20) Morris (1869-?); and 21) James Carter (1874-?) married Mattie Bryan. The six charter members of the Ebenezer Primitive Baptist Church, organized September 16, 1865 included Levi Moore and Mary Elizabeth (Wilkerson) Moore. Levi was buried at Ebenezer Cemetery in Leake Co., MS.
The Pioneers Westward
Between 1730 and today, my Moore ancestors pioneered this nation from Virginia, through North Carolina and Georgia, on to Old Autauga County, just as Alabama became the 22nd of the United States of America. Then my line went “west” through Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma to California then, in my case, to retirement in Arizona. Obadiah Moore’s grandson, James, his wife Mary Ann and their children, including 5 year old Enoch, my great-grandfather, were living on Chestnut Creek Beat, Autauga County, Alabama in 1850. Living nearby were Enoch’s grandparents, John and Polly Moore, and his Aunt Dicy and Uncle Allen Ray, with great-grandma Winney, Obadiah’s widow, living in the Ray home. James “Jim” Moore (1819-aft. 1864), his wife Mary Ann Miller and their five children, William, Elizabeth, Enoch, Lena and Christina, left Chestnut Creek in Alabama and went west by wagon train. The family was in Autauga County at the 1850 census; later they moved and were in Arkansas by about 1860. In his civil war pension, Enoch states he had known D. L. McIntosh, Franklin County, Arkansas for thirty- five years in 1895 – since 1860, when Enoch was fifteen. In April of 1864, Enoch, who turned nineteen on March 5, bid his family farewell before induction at Little Rock, Pulaski County, Arkansas, leaving to serve in the Civil War. His home mail address at enlistment was Rockport, Hot Spring County. The American Civil War had been rampaging through the south since 1861. The Union forces invaded the seceding state of Arkansas, occupying Little Rock in September of 1863. Shortly afterwards a law was passed requiring all able bodied men 18 through 35 to register for the draft, penalty for evasion execution by firing squad. Just before that deadline, eighteen year old Enoch enlisted with the Union Calvary, on December 5, 1863. We who are his descendants don’t know if he joined the Union forces because he didn’t wish to see the United States of America divided, because he did not believe in slavery, or because he wished to avoid being shot for evading the draft, preferring the Calvary to the Infantry, or all three. Later, he expressed opposition to a divided country, pointing out that his forefathers fought to found the United States of America, but whether that conviction (which he reminded his grandson was shared initially by General Robert E. Lee) was cause or effect we don’t know for sure. Enoch Moore mustered in on April 12, 1864, in Little Rock, Arkansas, for a term of three years. He was 5 ft. 8 inches tall, fair skin, dark hair and blue-gray eyes. He was in General Steele’s Division, Warner's Company F, 4th Regiment, Arkansas Calvary, USA. He furnished his own gear and horse, serving as a private under Adjutant General F. C. Ainsworth and Lt. Whitten. He was a scout and telegraph line repairman, learning to read and write while in the service. During his service his horse was shot out from under him and he was injured, his ankle badly crushed when his horse rolled over on top of him, disabling him for life. He was honorably discharged on June 30, 1865, after 14 months of service, in Little Rock, Pulaski County, Arkansas. When he returned home to Rockport in Hot Spring County he found his family had vanished. Later, he was to ever find only one sister, Sarah Elizabeth, who as the wife of Elisha Robertson was a witness to his marriage to Susan Caroline Hines at the close of the civil war. This writer received letters from a descendant of two of his sisters in later years: Sarah Elizabeth, who married Elisha Robertson and Christina Harriet, later styled as Chaney, who married his brother Isaac Robertson. He found no trace of his parents or older brother William. Enoch Moore and Susan Caroline Hines (1849-1934), John and Mary (Goodman) Hines’ daughter, were married by Baptist Minister Rev. Gorum Frost Sept. 16, 1866 in Rockport, Hot Spring Co., Arkansas. Sarah Elizabeth and Elisha Robertson, residents of Hon, Scott County, Arkansas in May, 1925, were present at the wedding. Enoch carried a document when he left home in 1864, upon it was written his parents’ names, birth dates, date of marriage; names and birth dates of their children. He later placed that paper in his wife’s bible, purchased by her North Carolina born father, inscribed: “ John Hines, this August 24the, 1855, Hot Spring County, Arkansas, When this you see, remember me, Though many miles apart we be. As part of my research, I also sent for Enoch’s death certificate, which showed his place of birth, his father’s Christian name and his mother’s surname at birth, which was Miller. Arkansas suffered some of the worst internecine conflict of any state during the war. Neighbor fought neighbor, and those criminally inclined took advantage of the war to plunder, rob and kill at will, according to local historians I talked with in 1987. There was no government much of the time, and anarchy reigned. ” Arkansas and Her Duty states, “Stock was nearly all run out of the county; furniture demolished and sometimes carried off; many fences torn down and buildings burned; probably not a house within the limits of the county but was at some period of the war rifled. The Unionists' homes were rifled by the Confederates and the Southern homes wrecked by the Federals, and often no distinctions were made. The books of the city show page after page of flour orders to the destitute, so lately in affluence. The forests and fields again became the homes of deer and other wild animals; no schools, churches, courts, mails, newspapers; nothing but stern hardihood, fear and anxiety, and scarcely the bare necessaries of life.” Enoch and Susie were in Donald, Franklin County, Arkansas in 1880. In 1895, at fifty, Enoch filed for a partial disability pension. Shortly after, they went by wagon train to Texas, where Enoch bought a farm on the outskirts of Paradise, which was later cut in half by the Rock Island Railroad when it came through. Porter and Susan Mae (Summerour) Wininger owned a farm in nearby Montague County, in the Red River Valley region bordering Oklahoma. Three of their four daughters married sons of Enoch and Susan.
This photo was a “clean up” from a poor Xerox copy sent me by a second cousin. Amazingly, photoshop made it possible to view this couple better and allowed the first look for our family of Enoch Moore and his wife, Susan Caroline Hines in front of their home in Arkansas. Enoch had an amazing head of hair. He was 5 ft 8 inches, blue gray eyes, born 1845 in Alabama and found in the 1850 Autauga County, Alabama census with his parents John Moore and wife, Mary Ann. His son Isaac said her maiden name was Miller on Enoch’s death certificate. By 1895, Enoch and Susan were living near Park Springs, Wise County Texas, founded in 1893. In pension statements and the article below, we find they knew Park Springs postmaster James M. James and resident J.M. Mitchum for twenty years; grocery store owner Severon R. Musgrove, thirty years. They knew M. F. Dorsey, of Montague County twenty years, since 1905, the year John Robert Moore married Cora Mae Wininger. In 1925, Susan files as widow, in 1934 dropped with the death March 19 of Susan Caroline (Hines) Moore, widow of Enoch Moore. A newspaper clipping sent by Stacy Moore reads in part: “What a difference 100 years can make! Ten decades ago [1898] Park Springs was a five year old town just beginning to prosper. The nation had just won "the Splendid Little War*" against Spain and military men from the North and the South once again fought shoulder to shoulder for the USA. The economy was growing and everyone looked forward to a new century with pride and confidence [but] the Boll Weevil turned out to be a big problem, causing the closing of two Park Springs cotton gins and a great emigration. [Residents] never foresaw two great world wars, the economic and social changes that would cause a great exodus from their hometown. The great fire of 1906 destroyed old Park Springs, which was located west of the railroad tracks and depot [and] rebuilt east of the railroad. A part of the building used for the Post Office and drugstore by James M. James is still standing. Severon Musgrove's old grocery building, used for selling groceries for many years after his passing, finally closed in the early 1960's and the tin covered building converted into a residence, inhabited until the 1980's. Vacant, it still stands across from the old town pump. The concrete ice storage bunker from Jude Chadwick's old grocery store is still visible at the south end of James Street and a wild plum thicket now covers the old lumber yard lots. The trains still run through, but the Rock Island is no more. The Union Pacific now glides across the rails through Park Springs.” *(“The splendid little war” - quote from Theodore Roosevelt about 1898 war between USA and Spain: Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico ceded to the USA; Cuba became independent.) When fever over Black Gold heated up in the middle of the roaring twenties with new discoveries in Oklahoma and a “boom” hit, many Texans moved to Stephens County, Oklahoma. In “booms” many people rushed to an area, and there wasn’t enough housing available. Tent houses, with wood floors, cloth sides and roofs, and in towns, wooden sidewalks, were put up till permanent houses could be built, and continued to be used for temporary housing in the area. Jack Moore remembers his family living for a time in such a tent house, a year or so before he started school about 1932, located on a creek bottom in Tillman County, Oklahoma, moving later to a house on a farm they leased. Enoch and Susan (Hines) Moore had eight children: 1) William Newton (1868-?) married first Sarah Tabitha Glass, second Clementine Wininger. Children by both. 2) Mary Alice, died young. 3) James Alexander, born March 7, 1873, died Oct. 6, 1962, married Willie Leona Bright (1880-1955), twelve children. 4) Isaac Andrew born Dec. 27, 1875 in Arkansas, died in Nacogdoches Co. TX on June 21, 1934, married Elizabeth Martha Appling (1872-1902). Resided Park Springs, Texas until 1925. two children. 5) Amanda Clementine (1878- ?) married Jan. 25, 1894, Milton Wagoner, no surviving descendants. 6) John Robert, (1880-1966) married 1905 Cora Mae Wininger: six children. 7) Marion Lee, born July 23, 1882, Charleston, Franklin Co. Arkansas, died June 21, 1960 in Vallejo, Solano Co., California. Married Sept. 22, 1907 in Park Springs, Wise Co., TX by Baptist Rev. Bill Nichols to sister-in-law, Lela Elizabeth Wininger, who was born August 24, 1889 Montague Co., TX, and died Nov. 5, 1982, Vallejo, Solano Co., CA. Ten children. 8) Oscar Elisha, born Oct. 27, 1885, died Jan. 7, 1935 in Wichita Falls, Texas, carnival roustabout, married first LuCinda Lawyer, July 31, 1905: two children. He married second, Opal Dudley in 1917, no known children. Marion Lee Moore, my grandfather, 7th child of Enoch and Susan (Hines) Moore, worked for the Rock Island Railroad in Texas from the age of eighteen. He lived in Paradise on his father’s farm, cut in half by the Rock Island Railroad when it came through. Marion was a railroad foreman at 25, when he married Lela Elizabeth Wininger, in 1907, considered a very good job, until 1918, “about the time I was ten,” according to their eldest son. While Rock Island’s employee, Marion invented a rail tong, a lever device to lift a rail weighing a couple of hundred pounds by only two men, saving labor costs. This railway declined in profitability. There was a reorganization in 1917 of the Rock Island Railroad (Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Company) which involved reduction of the work force by more than half and was felt most heavily in the south and southwest, where Marion worked. The railway claimed and used the design Marion invented, but he lost his job anyway! In 1987, we traveled to the farm Enoch Moore owned. It truly was like its name, Paradise, when we were there; flowers rampant, green fields, a lovely place of rolling hills and beautiful farmland. Marion and Lela lived in Stephens Co., then in Snomac, Seminole County, then moved westward to Tillman, Tipton County to farm about 1934, and were caught in the drought on the edge of the “dust bowl” on the sandy plains of south western Oklahoma. Dust storms swirled around the farm, darkening the sky. Sand went under doors, through tiny cracks in window sills, was everywhere in the house! Their daughter, Roberta died at 16 after suffering a burst appendix in October, 1934, in Tipton, Tillman County. In the summer of 1942, Marion, 60, and Lela, 53, sold all their household belongings. With those funds, $100, they paid two men driving to California in a ’36 Ford Six Passenger Sedan $50 ($25 down, $25 on delivery) to take them and their two youngest sons to Planada in Merced County. The remaining $50 was traveling money for four and stake to start a new life in California, where they joined a daughter and son- in-law. Marion and his family found work; hard work and low pay in the fruit orchards and canning sheds, but work. Within a year, Marion got a job as a pipefitter at Mare Island Naval Yard in Vallejo, Solano County, California, where he worked four years. Six of their seven living children would live in Solano County during WW II. Later, Marion and Lela ran a small “pick-up” food store. Then they retired, just working the two-acre plot of vegetables, fruit trees and garden on which sat their modest home. It was always neat as a pin, and the gardens were beautiful. Marion and Lela celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in that house. There, while gardening, Marion collapsed and died of a heart attack at 77. On my last visit with her Lela said ‘I think one husband is enough for anybody, don’t you?’ Then, knowing death was near, tried to give me some of her jewelry, then bowed her head, asking me to pray with her, and said, ‘Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.’ She died at 93. Marion and Lela (Wininger) Moore are buried in the Skylawn Cemetery of the Good Shepherd in Vallejo, Solano County, California, not far from their eldest and youngest sons. I have always been fascinated with the history of people. Early in life it became my ambition to find about our own family lines during the years before and after the United States of America was founded, about the lives and times of those who pioneered the new country and those who met them at the shore, as did some of my ancestors. It took almost a lifetime, but the results were fascinating beyond my dreams when I began, at the age of nine. While creating a new nation, many made their fortunes, nothing of which remained by the time of my generation except the gift of a life in a free country: a priceless inheritance Footnotes: 12 Some records show his name as Richard Edwin Moore in error. |
