started to Illinois, to settle there, he went from West Virginia; but that does not prove he was born there. Sometimes his party of settlers is spoken of as Marylanders; sometimes as Virginians, and again as of both. In truth they were of both, but migrating from one or the other does not prove birthplace.

Stuvé and Davidson, page 203, speak of the party as Moore, Garrison, Kidd, Bond and Rutherford, saying that James Moore was the leader and they were from Virginia and Maryland, Moore settling at Belle Fontaine.

I judge that is true; some of those men were soldiers of General Clarke, of which I will speak later. Clarke's force was partly recruited in Kentucky and partly in West Virginia, but not, I think, in Maryland. So Bond probably was born in Maryland, as many writers say (non constat the affidavit of birth in Virginia), and Kidd and Rutherford, doubtless as Reynolds says, were Clarke's soldiers, recruited, I think, in Virginia, though native of Maryland.

Lewis ("History of West Virginia") says that in Lord Dunmore's war, 1774, there was on the scene a mixture of the peoples of West Virginia and Maryland. The booklet of John Milton Moore says that the party in starting for the Illinois started from Wheeling. So, notwithstanding that it seems clear he was born in Virginia, he is frequently credited to Maryland. A good many writers of early history speak of him and of his party, as I will quote later, on other subjects. Some call him Virginian, some say he

was of Maryland, naturally falling into confusion on matter not deemed important, and more naturally, too, of a moving people. He surely did start to the Illinois from Wheeling, and at the time of the start was living near there with his family, then consisting of his wife, Catherine Biggs, my grandfather John, his first born, and other children.

The marriage of James Moore second does not assist as much as it might otherwise in fixing his nativity, by reason that the Biggs family was settled first at Frederick, Maryland, with a branch leaving there to settle (among the first) in West Virginia. I will speak later more at large concerning my Biggs ancestry.

Sufficient here to say that the original Biggs settled on the Monocacy River near Frederick in 1742. One of his sons, Benjamin, in 1770, with his family removed to West Liberty on Short Creek, near Wheeling. Catherine Biggs, the wife of James Moore second, was his daughter. She was born March 6th, 1750, so was twenty years old when her family left Maryland. James Moore, who married her, was born February 14th, 1750 (or 1749), so he was also about twenty when his wife's family left Maryland. James Moore and Catherine Biggs were married May 1st, 1772, two years after his wife's family had left Maryland.

Now, several situations may have been present as possibilities, but as the marriage was two years after the wife's parents removed to Virginia, one would say they married in Virginia and consequently that

my grandfather, their first born, born May 23rd, 1773, was there born. It could be that the family had long before left Maryland; that James Moore second was born in Virginia and was found there by Catherine. My uncle's Bible (supra), presumably copied as to that from an original record, says their first child, my grandfather John, was born in Maryland. He thought, and wrote, that after the marriage of James and Catherine in Virginia, the spouses moved to Maryland and again moved back, but all I can do is to leave it where I find it.

I feel clear that my grandfather was born in Virginia. Benjamin Biggs, the father of Gen. Benjamin Biggs, and of Catherine, who married James Moore, moved from Frederick, Maryland, to West Liberty (Short Creek), Virginia, in 1770, and we know that James Moore and Catherine married in 1772. Now, as appears in "Abstract of Documents contained in Draper Mss.," printed as an appendix hereto, Benjamin Biggs in 1770 in Virginia assisted James Moore in building his house on his settlement. It is thus indicated that Moores and Biggs were settled in Virginia at that date.

Now to this point in disjointed narrative we have my great-grandfather, James Moore second, married to Catherine Biggs, living, as I assume, near Wheeling, and my grandfather, John Moore, their first child, born 1773. We will hear no more of John until we find him a boy of a few years in the country of the Illinois, in 1780 or 1781. In fact I know no more

of the doings of James Moore second from his marriage until he went to the Illinois.

The pertinent inquiry then is, when did he first go? Was he a soldier under George Rogers Clarke? What did he do in the Illinois, and how did he live and die, and what became of his children? Was he the first American settler? and so on.

I cannot make much segregation in matter cited, but all citations and observations thereon will relate to the whole inquiry in whole or salient part. But before citation to or observation on matters relating to my great-grandparents, Moore and Biggs, I will kind of bring up the Biggs stock to the point, if it comes, where the relation may refer to both. I get the data in part from historical publications, and partly from a genealogical compilation made by the father of Miss Irma T. Biggs, now living in Frederick, Maryland.

CHAPTER III

OHN BIGGS, the remotest American ancestor, was born in England, wife's name unknown. He with his family first settled in 1740 in New Jersey. In 1741 he removed to Maryland, settling on Monocacy River, six miles above Frederick. He had two sons, Benjamin and William. The son William remained in Maryland, having a family of eight sons and two daughters, whose descendants are still about Frederick (see among my papers a letter from Miss Irma T. Biggs, giving many names and residences). In a letter to me she says "in 1770 the son Benjamin sold all his property and removed to West Liberty on Short Creek, West Virginia."

In "Early Western Travels," Reuben Gold Thwaites, Vol. III, there is given the journal of Harris's Travels in 1803. Therein Harris gives account of the mounds near Grave Creek, now Moundsville, West Virginia, saying a mound in Colonel Biggs' garden had been excavated for an ice house.

In a note to that reference Thwaites says:

"The Biggs family was an important one in the annals of Western Virginia. The father migrated from Maryland, and about 1770 settled on Short Creek above Wheeling. There were six sons, noted as Indian fighters, of whom General Benjamin Biggs was best known, having served