Moore Family and relationship to Merion MM in Pennsylvania

Merion Meeting House

http://merionfriends.org

A discussion came up on the Quaker mail list today that mentioned Merion MM.  I knew that it was familiar to me, but had to do a bit of hunting to remind myself of which of my ancestors was connected to this area and in what time frame.  I have a slideshow that is named Pennsylvania Monthly Meetings in which I had made notes about my Moore family and their connection to Merion MM.  For more information about this Moore family use the search box in the top left hand corner with subject Moore.

Much of my information on my Moore family comes from Joseph Moore whose work was published in the Georgia Genealogical Society Vol 44, Number 1, Spring 2008.  Mr. Moore in turn has given credit for some of his information to Marjory Dickey Parsons  (1916-2007) who was the author of Lines and Lifestyles: Dickey, Moore, Parsons, and Some Related Families (Balimore: Gateway Press, 1988).

I have not done this research for myself.  However, Mr. Moore says that John and Jane Cureton Moore had children who are documented in the Register of the Radnor Meeting among whom is Richard Moore, Sr (1697-c.1784) who is the patriarch of the Moore family in Georgia.  It is this Richard Moore who is my 8-gr-grandfather.  My own research does indeed connect me with documentation to Richard Moore's son, Mordecai Moore who was living in Wrightsboro, Ga during the Revolutionary War.

Mr. Moore explains that John and Jane Cureton Moore were living in Merion Township by 1702.  This would have been Philadelphia County (now lower Merion in Montgomery County). John Moore and members of his family are buried in the cemetery at Historic Merion Meeting House in the area long known as the Philadelphia Main Line.  In 1702, John Moore acquired a farm on Cobbs Creek and Indian Creeks in Blockley Township, Philadelphia County, where Cobbs Creek is now located.  This property remained in the Moore family well into the 19th C and included water-powered mills on Indian Creek.

It is very clear just where John and Jane were living from info above on this map below.  It would be just where 69^th St Terminal is on map below.  Township Line Road is the same as Rt 1 and City Ave on preceeding map, so Merion MM would be North west of the Moore farm

March 2014, Rick Duran sent me the AMAZING information that he found on-line that shows exactly where the Moore family lived!  I was off by a very small amount above.  The homestead was actually across Cobbs Creek from the Terminal on above map ....My best interpretation is that it is now a golf course through which the area of the original farmstead is where Landsdale Ave and Cardington Road now go through Cobbs Creek Park.   Rick gave me the co-ordinates marked by the yellow push pin below which I interpret to be the spot on Cobbs Creek that marks the corner of the Moore homestead with the corner of the Edward Williams Homestead.

 To see the Blockley Township Landoners in October 1777 prepared by J.M. Duffin go to:

http://www.archives.upenn.edu/histy/features/wphila/maps/atlas1777blockley_duffin.pdf

The land owned by James and Abel is found on plate 10.  This makes excellent sense because my data base says that John and Jane Cureton Moore's oldest son, James:

The paternal 100 acres homestead plantation on Mill Creek was conveyed to James Moore by Deed of 19th of 8th month (Oct.) 1721.  http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=jcfinley&id=I98564

This James Moore did indeed have a son named Abel who almost certainly was named after his mother's father, Abel Thomas.  

Rick sent another URL for a map that is found in the American Memory Collection at the Library of Congress site.  The Moore homestead is shown on this map on Cobs Creek.   The map is

A plan of the city and environs of Philadelphia. Engraved and published by Matthew Albert Lotter

It can be found at:  http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/map_item.pl

The map below shows where Merion Meeting house is in relationship to Philadelphia today.  Merion Meeting House is located in within the pink area marked with A.  

Here is one more map that shows were Cobbs Creek is in relationship to Merion Meeting House. The marker with the A does not show the exact location of the meeting house itself.  The meeting house is in the V formed by the intersection of Montgomery Ave and Meetinghouse Lane.   Look straight down from Merion to find Cobbs Creek on the map.

In an e-mail on the Quaker mail list on this date, Tom Hill said:

Merion MM records are at Swarthmore's Friends Historical Library
(FHL) and on LDS microfilm.
https://www.quakermeetings.com/Plone/search_display?MeetingName=Merion 

Elizabeth Hanesbury on the Old Chester County mail list reminded me that the list of those buried in the Merion Meeting House Cemetery is on line.  One can find it in the archives of the Old Chester County Mail list.  In looking for the link for that I found the following link:

http://www.lowermerionhistory.org/burial/merion/

Sandra Ferguson sent information to the Pennsylvania Old Chester County mail list about Lower Merion Township.  I had to look to see if this was the area of interest to me:

• Lower Merion: Ardmore, Bala, Bala-Cynwyd, Belmont Hills, Bryn Mawr, County Line Sta, Gladwyne, Haverford, Merion Station, Narberth, Penn Wynne, Rosemont, Roseglen, West Manayunk, Wynnewood

Absolutely!  So here is the URL for this site:

http://lowermerionhistory.org/texts/first300/part04.html