The Moore Family Papers were purchased by the University of New\ Brunswick at a Southeby's auction in London, England, on 13 December 1993. The purchase was made possible through funding from a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Fleeting Opportunities Grant, The University of New Brunswick Library, and with the assistance of Patricia Kennedy and other personnel from the National Archives of Canada. There is evidence within the Papers which strongly suggests that they were in the possession of W.O Raymond as late as 1920. In his book, The Ancestry of the Family of William Odbur Raymond, which was compiled in that year, Raymond reproduces the exact text of several of the letters in the collection. Where the Papers were from that time until the Southbey's auction remains unknown. James Moore was born on 24 July 1754 in Newtown, Long Island, New York, the son of John Moore Jr. (1730-1827) and Hannah Whitehead (1729-1827). John Moore was a Loyalist who had been permitted to live on his estate during the American Revolution, but at the end of the war he sent James Moore, his oldest son, to Nova Scotia to look for a place where the family might settle should they be forced into exile by the Americans. As events unfolded, the family was able to remain in New York State and James was the only one to make his home in British North America. The family of John Moore Jr. consisted of four sons: James, Daniel (died young), Benjamin, and Daniel Sachett. There were five daughters: Elizabeth, Anna, Patience, Mary and Abigail. The Papers contain correspondence with several of the above, and others are mentioned in many of the letters. James Moore traveled first to Granville, Nova Scotia, where he secured a grant of land and later moved to Saint John, New Brunswick. In May 1785, he married Elizabeth (Hallett) Seaman (1762-1815), a widow and the daughter of Captain Samuel Hallett of 2nd Delancey's Brigade. James Moore and his wife settled at Lower St. Mary's on the St. John River near Fredericton, New Brunswick, and purchased 600 acres of land from two sergeants and two corporals of the former Maryland Loyalist Regiment. A house was built on the farm and in 1789 John Moore visited his son for several months and was so pleased with the location he even considered moving from New York. By 1798, James Moore's health was failing, and late in the year he went to visit his relatives and his old home on Long Island where he died on 25 February 1799. The five Moore children: John, Maria, Eliza, Jane, and Hannah, remained in New Brunswick with their mother after their father's death, but returned to New York to attend school and for family visits. Maria, the oldest child, was only twelve years of age at the time of her father's death.
James Moore left all his property in Newtown, Granville, and St. Mary's, to his wife and children. Maria (1786-1855) married Samuel Carman, the son of the Loyalist Richard Carman and Sarah Horsfield Carman; Eliza (b.1788) married James Cunningham of Queensbury, New Brunswick; John (1791-1809) died at the age of eighteen years; Jane Whitlock (b.1794) married Isaac DeVeber, son of the Loyalist Gabriel DeVeber; and Hannah (b.1797) married her cousin Samuel Hallett of Sussex. The author and historian, W.O.Raymond, was a great grandson of both James Moore and Richard Carman. |