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WILLIAM MOORE OF MOORE HALL




William Moore was a son of John Moore, collector of the port of Philadelphia, and was born in that city on the 6th day of May, 1699. In his early youth he was sent to England to be educated, and he graduated at the University of Oxford in 1719. His wife is said to have been a descendant of the Earl of Wemyss, and this tradition receives support from the fact that in his will he refers to the noble and honorable family from which she sprang. His father having become interested in the Pickering tract in Charlestown township, Chester Co. Pa., in 1729, gave him a lot of 240 acres on the Pickering creek, adjacent to the Schuylkill, on which he had been living for some years, and there he passed the remainder of his long and eventful life. On it he erected a frame house which was later superseded by a stone mansion overlooking the river. The latter is still standing and has ever since borne the name of Moore Hall. He also built a saw mill and the Bull tavern, a famous hostelry in the colonial days. He lived in considerable style, and had a number of slaves and other servants. In the Weekly Mercury for February 28th, 1737-8, he advertises for sale “a young man who understands writing and accounts, and lately kept school.” He was an enthusiastic churchman, and at different times was a vestryman of St. James' Episcopal Church, on the Perkiomen, and of Radnor Church, in Delaware County. He was Colonel of one of the Chester County militia regiments during the time of the troubles with the Indians. As became a