William Moore & Moore Hall
by Michael Pilligalli
Moore Hall: One of the oldest Georgian style homes in Chester County.
William Moore (1699 to 1783)
William Moore was born on May 6, 1699, in Philadelphia. He was educated in his early years at boarding schools in England and ended up a graduate of the University of Oxford in 1719. His wife, Wilhelmina, was said to be a descendant of the Earl of Wemyss, therefore probably titled a Duchess. Originally a Penn Grant to Charles Pickering, the large parcel was left to sixteen associates of Pickering’s at his death. One of whom was John Moore and his wife Rebecca. William’s mother and father. William’s father, who was the collector at the port of Philadelphia, gave William and his wife part of his property in Charlestown Township when they returned to the states in 1729. He inherited 340 acres along the Pickering Creek and adjacent to the Schuylkill River and he gave them 240 acres of the parcel. There was supposedly no dwelling there when they were given the land and he and his wife began to erect a frame dwelling as their family started to grow and ended up with twelve children. While the building of a dwelling was going on, William also built a sawmill and constructed the Bull Tavern, a well-known hostelry in its days. As time passed, and as the family and money grew, the frame house was replaced in 1740 with the current day stone mansion that is still known today as Moore Hall. This Georgian stone home is one of the oldest Georgian style homes in Chester County.
Accounts afford us the knowledge that he lived in considerable style with several servants and slaves which were housed on the property. He was a devout churchman and served as a vestryman for both the St. James Episcopal Church on the Perkiomen River and The Radnor Church in Delaware County. He served as a colonel of one of Chester County’s militia regiments during difficult times with the Native Americans in the area. His military career led him to be interested in politics and in 1733, he became an Assemblyman and served in that capacity until 1740 when the Governor appointed him a Justice of the Peace and a Judge of the Chester County Courts. During his tenure as an Assemblyman, William Moore belonged to the Quaker and anti-proprietary party. He confessed of himself in 1757, that he believed he could act the patriot and serve as a representative. When he opposed all Proprietary Innovations Due to his religious and political beliefs and was partial for the liberty of his country, he found that the Post of Profit might be more profitable than the honor of serving his country.
Gen. Anthony Wayne
The ensuing 40 years as Judge were trying for William to include a long-standing feud with Isaac Wayne, the father of the Revolutionary General, Anthony Wayne, and then the disturbances continued with Anthony Wayne himself. He was considered one of the most decided and influential friends of the proprietaries in the area of Chester County. The Governor and the Assembly were disputing an issue and Moore took an active part and in 1755 wrote that two thousand men were coming from Chester County to Philadelphia and urged the Assembly to pass a militia law which highly upset the Quaker contingency who were highly opposed to this announcement. This started a struggle with Moore as the singular voice to be heard and the dispute had to be settled by “The Throne”. For the following two years, Moore had to withstand the myriad of petitions that were presented to his Assembly charging him with injustice, extortion, and tyranny as a magisterial officer and therefore asking for his removal from office. It seems that his political rivals were some of the biggest complainers of his actions and the authors of many of the penners of the petitions. Moore defended himself in each case through broadbills and stated that the instigator was his nemesis, Isaac Wayne. The Assembly heard the petitioners and invited Moore to come defend himself, but he chose not to make an appearance. He instead wrote an article for Benjamin Franklin’s paper, The Gazette, saying the actions of the Assembly and the petitioners was “virulent and scandalous.” He wrote also that they were a string of continual epithets which were conceived of rage and originated by a member of the assembly during a spell in a local tavern and implied that the tavern atmosphere and refreshments made them not aware of what they were signing. A new Assembly had been elected and after The Gazette article was published, the sergeant-of- arms of the Assembly received notification that William Moore was to be arrested. He was seized at Moore Hall in January of 1758, and confined to a cell in a jail in the city of Philadelphia. So ended his life of comfort on the 240 acres. At his arrest, he admitted he wrote the article but refused to retract his statements in a later edition of said paper. Since he refused to retract his statement, he was confined to prison for three months before his release was ordered. The Governor made a statement that Moore had purged himself of all the original charges and the Governor had not known a fuller and clearer defense. An appeal was made to “The Crown of England” in February 1760, and Moore and his friends were victorious in the crown’s eyes as to their unwarrantable behavior in assuming power and invading the royal prerogative and the liberties of the people.
When the Revolutionary War broke out, Moore was seventy-six years old and severely suffering from gout. This did not deter him from staying alive to the importance of the conflict and his sympathies were on the side of the crown. He wrote in May of 1775, that the people of Boston were rebels and should be committed to prison for their actions toward liberty. This prompted the Chester County Committee, headed by Anthony Wayne, to visit Moore at his home on June 6, 1775, to get him to recant his suspected Toryism. Between his age and ill health, Moore penned sarcastically that he encouraged the learning of military art, apprehending that the time is not far off when there may be time for it. Again, an attempt to satisfy all through his words.
While the armies were quartered at Valley Forge, Colonel Clement Biddle and Nathaniel Greene were sent to Moore Hall by a congressional committee to be used as their quarters and then a committee of six was sent there for 3 months in the early part of 1778 to review George Washington’s performance in the Revolutionary War. George Washington rode the three miles from Valley Forge to Moore Hall to confer with the delegation. The whole group lived in the house and forced the elderly William and Wilhelmina to reside on the third floor. In 1779, Moore Hall also served at Headquarters for Cornwallis. William Moore died on May 30, 1783, three months before the Treaty of Paris was signed ending the war and is buried in Radnor, in the same cemetery as his antagonist Anthony Wayne. Moore is buried at the front entrance to the celebrated old church reminding each entrant that there lies one of the most heroic and conspicuous figures in the history of our Chester County. Though bitter foes, Anthony Waynes’s Waynesboro Mansion was built after the erection of Moore Hall, but a surprising number of similar architectural features are present on Wayne’s home to match those on Moore Hall.
Today, Moore Hall is also a Class 1 Historic Structure for Schuylkill Township. It was placed on the National Register Of Historic Places on November 19, 1974.