MOORE, ENOCH
, was born March 26, 1802, near Waterloo, in what is now Monroe county, but then St. Clair county, Ill. His parents settled there about 1781. His father, John Moore, was a brother of General James B. Moore--they were natives of Virginia--and his mother a sister of General J. B. Whitesides;--she was a native of South Carolina; each of whom were influential men in the early history of Illinois, Enoch Moore was married near Waterloo. Illinois, Sept. 10, 1833, to Charlotte Sherman, who was born August 10, 1804, in one of the eastern States, and came to Illinois when quite young. They had three children, two of whom died in infancy. Of the third--HESTER A., born Nov. 1, 1834, was married in Springfield, Nov. 20, 1854, to J. N. Underwood, a native of Illinois. Mrs. Underwood died Nov. 4, 1855, at Bloomington, Ill. Mr. Underwood was editorially connected with one of the Bloomington papers. He has since married, but his residence is not known.
Mrs. Charlotte Moore died April 2 1839, at Vandalia, Ill. Enoch Moore was married near Richmond, Ky., March 31, 1845, to Matilda Wakefield, who was a native of Massachusetts.
Enoch Moore lived in Alton a short time after his first marriage, then moved to Vandalia, where he was employed as clerk in the office of the State Treasurer. When the records were removed to Springfield, in 1839, he came with them and was engaged principally in the Fund Commissioner's office, through all the changes of administration. His strict integrity, unfeigned conscientiousness, humility and consistent christian deportment, was so apparent that no political partisan ever felt justified in displacing him, and he continued to the end of his life in connection with some one of the State offices. His careful and methodical business habits led to the detection of the spurious indebtedness issued in the name of the Fund Commissioners, to the amount of hundreds and thousands of dollars, many years after it took place. He also discovered the fraudulent re-issue of canal bonds by Governor Matteson.
Mrs. Matilda Moore died March 23, 1863, in Springfield. Enoch Moore died March 28, 1876, in Chicago, while undergoing an operation for cataract of the eye. His remains were brought to Springfield, and buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery. The only surviving member of the family is their daughter--
CHARLOTTE M., who was born in Springfield, and now--1876--resides in her native city. She has been an energetic and efficient laborer in city missionary work, temperance and prison reform.
Enoch Moore will be remembered by all who visited the State House during the thirty-six years he spent there, by his stature. He was but four feet two inches high, yet his body was so fully developed that in a sitting posture he looked quite as large as the average of mankind. His weight was about one hundred and seventy pounds when in ordinary health. The deficiency was in the length of his lower limbs. He leaves a sister, Mrs. Hester A. Allyn, residing at the corner of Third and Monroe streets, Springfield. Her husband, Rev. Norman Allyn, was a traveling preacher in the Southern Illinois Conference M. E. church, at the time of his death, at Bunker Hill, Ill., in March, 1864.