Biography - JACOB R. MOORE
Jacob
Rice Moore, who recently died, was one of the best known and most generally
respected farmers in the county. His illness lingered and lasted for two
long years before death relieved him. There were probably but few people in
the neighborhood of Arcola and its surroundings who were aware that Mr.
Moore at the time of his death was one of the oldest residents of the
county. He was born within sight of the place on which he died and the same
section of rich Illinois soil which claims the honor of his birth witnessed
his rise to manhood and his gradual advancement to comparative old age. For
sixty-two years he lived and thrived on the same farm where his birth
occurred, when Douglas county was unheard of and the old prairie state was a
wilderness of a few scattering hamlets. Before Arcola was a dot on the map
he was living on the farm where he died and he witnessed the swamp lands of
the county mature into the richest and one of the most fertile counties on
the continent. He was one of those quiet, unassuming men who let the great
world fight its battles while he built a beautiful home for his wife and
interesting children. He was careful and economical and what he earned he
saved. Through this method of economy, his land interests broadened out and
he became one of the successful men in the business affairs of the
community. It is said of Mr. Moore that during his entire life he was never
absent from his home more than a period of thirty days at the most.
Jacob R. Moore was born September 18, 1836, and died June 2, 1899, aged
sixty-two years, eight months and fourteen days. He was married to Mary W.
Bacon, of Bourbon, December 31, 1862. To them were born seven children,
whose names are as follows: Richard, George B., Rice J., Anna M., Wade H.,
Emma B. S., and Leonora Moore. As a neighbor, Mr. Moore was always ready to
lend a helping hand and passed through the trials incident to the life of
early settlers in what was then the far west. For years he was one of the
directors of the First National Bank of Arcola. He helped to build Bethel
church, and lent valuable aid in organizing the congregation during the fall
of 1883, although not an active member; he and his wife became members
October 4, 1884, and in June, 1890, he was raised to the dignity of elder.
Mr. Moore was a man of strong, positive character and unswerving dignity,
and in his death the community in which he had so long resided lost a kind
neighbor and a good citizen, and the church with which he had been so
closely identified, one of its strongest stays and most helpful members.
Capt. Rice J. Moore, a son, volunteered in the Illinois National Guard,
March 31, 1894; saw field service in Chicago, in July, 1894; appointed
corporal July 10, 1895; appointed quartermaster sergeant March 15, 1897:
commissioned second lieutenant Fourth Infantry, Illinois Volunteers. May 20,
1898; detached from Fourth Regiment July 25, 1898; and assigned to Engineer
Corps of the Seventh Army Corps in 1898. He resigned his commission in the
army November 9, 1898, and returned to the farm.
Extracted 22 Jul 2019 by Norma Hass from the Historical and Biographical Record of Douglas County, Illinois, published in 1900, pages 229-230.
