My Moore Family in Philadelphia

Wow!  I have learned so much in the past week as I get ready for my trip to Philadelphia.  I have had a great deal of help from others on this project.  This week I am getting help from four Moore descendants who have been working as a team before I joined the group.  We are talking about the things that I might do specifically to further the group research on our mutual ancestors if I find that I have the time and if I have any luck at all.  This post is a place for me to put reminders of what I already know and what I would like to find.

The first piece of information that I know about my 9-gr-grandparents came from an article written by Joseph Moore entitled Quaker John Moore that was published in Georgia Genealogical Society Quarterly, Vol 44, No 1:

James Moore was present in Philadelphia, within two years of the city’s founding by William Penn.  James’ lot at the City Center, on which he built a house in 1684, forms the southwest corner of present Dilworth Plaza. 

From reading on Wikipedia and other sources found by google searches I know that Philadelphia was founded 27 Oct 1682 by William Penn.  Penn purchased the land between the Schuykill and Delaware Rivers from the Lenape Indians of the Delaware Nation.  He founded  the town to act as the capital of the Pennsylvania Colony.  

From Wikipedia:

City Hall is built on the area designated by William Penn as Centre Square. It was a public square from the city's founding in 1682 until the construction of City Hall began upon the site in 1871. It was one of the five original squares laid out on the city grid by Penn. It lay at the geographic heart of the city from 1682 until the Act of Consolidation, 1854 (although it was never the social heart of the city during that long period).

Penn planned for Centre Square to be:

a central square or plaza of ten acres to be bordered by the principal public buildings, such as the Quaker meetinghouse, the state house, the market house, and the schoolhouse. Despite the two riverfronts [Delaware and Schuylkill, Penn's city had an inward-facing design, focusing on this central plaza.^[10]

However, the Delaware riverfront would remain the de facto economic and social heart of the city for more than a century.

[…] hardly anyone lived west of Fourth Street before 1703. Consequently Penn's design of a center square as the hub of his community had to be abandoned. The large Friends meeting house which was built in 1685 at the midpoint between the rivers was dismantled in 1702. Efforts to develop the Schuylkill waterfront likewise collapsed. Of the merchants, tradesmen, and craftsmen who can be identified as living in Philadelphia around 1690, 123 lived on the Delaware side of town and only 6 on the Schuylkill side. One of the latter, a tailor named William Boulding, complained that he had invested most of his capital in his Schuylkill lot, 'so that he cannot, as others have done, Remove from the same.' Not until the mid-nineteenth century, long after the city had spilled northward and southward in an arc along the Delaware miles beyond its original limits, was the Schuylkill waterfront fully developed. Nor was Centre Square restored as the heart of Philadelphia until the construction of City Hall began in 1871.^[10]

So James and Rose lived smack dab in the middle of "what was happening" in 1684.  But as the town grew, the social center of the town was no longer the area that James and Rose had settled on first.

Wikipedia says about the growth of Philadelphia:  "Philadelphia grew from a few hundred inhabitants in 1683 to over 2,500 in 1701. The population was mostly English, Welsh, Irish, Germans, Swedes, Finns, Dutch, and African slaves. Before William Penn left Philadelphia for the last time on October 25, 1701 he issued the Charter of 1701. The charter established Philadelphia as a city and gave the mayor, aldermen, and councilmen the authority to issue laws and ordinances and regulate markets and fairs."

From the same article written by Joseph Moore comes the following information:

James Moore was a blacksmith by trade and performed work on Penn’s Mill, for which he was partially paid by a 1692 land grant (which he shortly sold) in Merion township, Philadelphia County, and in 1690 he assembled the leaded glass windows for the Quaker’s Center Meeting House in Philadelphia.

I asked on the Quaker mail list about Penn's Mill and the consensus of opinion seems to be that this would have been Caleb Pusey's Mill.  Janet who descends from the Pusey family sent me the URL for an excellent article that gives information about this Mill:

http://uplandboro.org/background-story-of-upland-in-the-1600s/

From this site comes the following:

"....in 1681, a group of twelve men in London, England had met to form a stock company (which became known as “the Society of Free Traders”) to erect one or more water powered mills in the new colony. The cost of the venture was to be divided among the investors with the profits to be shared according to the investment each made. Caleb Pusey was selected to be the mill manager and agent for the joint venture. Richard Townsend was a builder and millwright and he directed the assembly and testing of a mill in the London area. This prefabricated mill was disassembled and loaded on the ship “Welcome” and was brought out to Upland with William Penn. Upon arrival, the mill was unloaded and barged up the Chester creek.

The location of the mill was decided upon with the help of Thomas Wade, a prominent Quaker who had lived in the area for 7 years. He was well respected by William Penn and he was asked to help Caleb Pusey scout the best location. The decision was made to locate the mill at the head of tidewater on the Chester creek. This would allow the mill and other materials to be floated up the creek to this point and to enable ease of transport of the milled flour and boards down the creek to Chester and beyond."

We know where this mill would have been located because Caleb Pusey's house still survives.

http://home.comcast.net/~calebpuseyhouse/site/

As you can see from below map this location is a jaunt from James and Rose's home.  I will visit this site when I come back with a car.

OK....the leaded glass windows in the meeting house....From the Wikipedia article about Philadelphia City Hall comes the information:  "Penn's design of a center square as the hub of his community had to be abandoned.  The large Friends meeting house which was built in 1685 at the midpoint between the rivers was dismantled in 1702."   

Steve explained the following about the original Meeting house and the windows:  "And of course they built the center meeting house which was to be THE meeting house.  According to the minutes they spared no expense in so doing.  It took several years to build and our James was one of many.  But as we know, the center of Philly did not play out as Penn had hoped and the epicenter of activity remained closer to the river.  The center house was eventually abandoned, but since they had so much money tied up in it, they made plans to dismantle it and sell the building materials.  Unfortunately, with my limited time I did not notate any of this, just bookmarked in my mind so I can go back to it down the road, so I can’t point you to the pages wherein this was all written.  Though no mention was made of the windows during their discussions of dismantling, it does stand to reason that they would also be salvaged and sold, or even reused in one of the other meeting houses.  I get the feeling that James’ windows lived on."

There is some discussion about my making an effort to see the wax seal on John Moore's will.  The next information is my research on this effort:

Probate Records 

Probate matters in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania Genealogy are handled by the Orphans' Court and start when the county was created. To obtain original probate records, contact the Orphan's Court in the County Courthouse. 

Philadelphia County is one of the three original counties, along with Chester and Bucks counties, created by William Penn in November 1682.

Philadelphia wills, administrations, and inventories, from the earliest times to the present. Indexes are available at Room 185, City Hall. The actual will and administration folders may be at City Hall or at 401 North Broad Street.

Philadelphia City Archives
Suite 942, 401 N. Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA  19108
PHONE:  215-686-1581
HOURS:  8:30 AM - 5 PM  Mon. thru Fri

Joseph and Steve believe that their research has identified Roose as wife to James Moore (father to the John whose will is is talked about immediately above).  It is thought that James died in.....Roose who is widow to James died in 1720.  This 

information is found in Henshaw Vol II on pages 441.  This is found in the part of Volume II that is labelled Philadelphia Monthly Meeting.  Our research group does 

not find it a surprise that Roose is listed among non-Quakers.  We have no reason

to believe that either James nor Roose were Quaker.  Several of their children 

were, however.  Including John and Jane Cureton Moore (son of James and Roose) from whom all three of us descend.

I believe it quite likely that Roose was buried in the graveyard that adjoins the Arch Street Meeting House.  Because the land had been used for burials for several years before Penn deeded it to be used for burials in 1701, it is likely that James is buried there as well.  We may never know for sure that they are buried here.

From the Swarthmore College site (http://www.swarthmore.edu/library/friends/philaburials3.htm)

The first burial ground for Quakers in Philadelphia was located on the east side of 4th Street, south of Arch Street. This land was deeded to Friends by William Penn in 1701 "for a burying place." However, it had already been used as a burial ground for several years prior to that date. John F. Watson reported that the first burial there was that of Thomas Lloyd's wife, Mary, in 1683.[2] Over the years there have been varying estimates of the total number of interments, some as high as 20,000. 

• 1701 William Penn issued a deed to the property in October of 1701 to trustees "for a burying place." 
• 1727-28 Ground surrounded by an almost 5 foot brick wall
•  1801-02 Construction of 9 foot walls and leveling of the ground. Before this date, interments were usually in family groups. After this time, burial was generally in rows chronologically by date of death. 
•  1803-1811 Arch Street Meeting House built on site: east wing in 1803-05, and the west in 1810-11. The meeting felt that "there is no necessity to remove the Remains of the Dead, for a foundation,"but there were some re-interments on the site when excavations were undertaken in 1803 and 1810.