hers.

for the Clarke service. We shall see that James Moore was a soldier and received land grant also.

In the booklet of the Moore Reunion before cited, it is said James Moore was a soldier under Clarke. It is historical that Clarke sent two men ahead. There is much comment on that matter in "Illinois Historical Collections, Vol, V, Virginia Series, Vol. II, Kaskaskia Records 1778-1790,” page 22 et seq., of Introduction, and pages 7 to 10 et seq., of the book. See also reference to, on page 8, "Clarke's Memoir. Conquest of the Territory Northwest of the Ohio," I p. 467. "Illinois Historical Collections," Vol. IX, p. 39. In these references the Moore who was sent on by Clarke with Linn is styled "S. More." In "Illinois Historical Collections, Vol. VIII, George Rogers Clarke Papers, 1771-1778, Vol. III, Virginia Series," there is reference to a John Moore killed by Indians, and Captain J. F. Moore. I know nothing of them, but at page ivii I note "Clarke sent Ben Linn and Samuel Moore as spies to Kaskaskia and Vincennes." In Clarke's Memoir he says he "sent two young hunters, S. Moore and B. Linn, as spies." In his diary entry of April 20, 1777, he notes: "Ben Linn and Samuel Moore sent express to the Illinois." At that time Clarke was at Harrodsburgh, Kentucky. The entry of June 22, 1777, is of the return of "Ben Linn and Samuel Moore from Illinois." December 3, 1777, Clarke left Williamsburg, "lodged near Captain Harrods at Mr. More's, and appointed Samuel More lieutenant under Captain Harrod," and

also appointed Linn. Davidson and Stuvé say Moore went on as a spy, calling him Moore.

Clarke was one of the very worst of spellers, but it seems clear that the man he sometimes calls More was not More, but Moore, a son likely of a Moore living near Harrodsburgh. See on that also Baker's "History of Kentucky."

This Kentucky Samuel may have been related to James Moore, the pioneer settler of Illinois. Moores of his branch did make early settlement in Kentucky. We have always known of that, and my oldest brother, Theodore Stanton Moore, still alive, remembers visits to our people in Illinois by Kentucky kins

men.

Now about the coming of James Moore to the Illinois country. I have said that in 1780 or 1781 he brought with him his wife, Catherine Biggs, and several children, including my grandfather, John, the eldest, born in Frederick, Maryland, or near Wheeling, West Virginia. I think it was the latter. The children of the spouses, James Moore the second and Catherine Biggs his wife, in the order of their birth were, to-wit:

John, probably born in Virginia, May 25, 1773. Benjamin, born in Virginia, September 17, 1775. William, born in Virginia, April 26, 1777.

James Biggs, born in Virginia, October 8, 1780. Enoch (first American born son of Illinois), born at Belle Fontaine, Monroe County, Illinois, February 17, 1783.

Mary, born November 4, 1784.

J. Milton, born October 18, 1786.

I can only follow with particularity from my grandfather John, but there is in the pamphlet of my uncle, John Milton, pretty complete reference to the descendants of the other children, and a mass of information is found in historical works, some of which I use.

Soon after James Moore camped at Slab Spring he moved to and erected a blockhouse fort at Belle Fontaine. This Belle Fontaine is a fine large spring situate about a half-mile from the courthouse in Waterloo, Monroe County, Illinois, and was on the trail by which the French and Indians had for a long time passed from Kaskaskia below to Cahokia above (opposite St. Louis). The spring still flows to Fountain Creek.

Indeed, the reason my forebears settled at that point instead of some other place in the wide expanse was that the presence of the French made defense from hostile Indians more feasible; one of the military land grants made to James Moore embraced this spring, Belle Fontaine (so named by the French), and there he built his blockhouse, his home, and as was the custom of the country, in fulness of time, his graveyard wherein he, his wife, most of his children and many allied by marriage now lie.

I have seen the old blockhouse in my early childhood, but it is long since gone. The brick house he later built (or it may have been built by his son John Milton) is still standing.

Reynolds's "Pioneer History of Illinois" mentions