James Moore (Continental Army Officer) - Early Life and Family

Early Life and Family

James Moore was born in New Hanover County in the Cape Fear region of the Carolinas in about 1737. His family had extensive landholdings at Rocky Point, located at a bend in the Cape Fear River about 15 miles (24 km) north of Wilmington. He was the son of Maurice Moore and his second wife, Mary Porter. His brother, also named Maurice Moore, would go on to become a Patriot political leader in North Carolina during the American Revolution. His sister, Rebecca Moore, would marry a Revolutionary War leader, militia General John Ashe.

Moore was, through his father's side, a grandson of Governor James Moore, who was governor of the Province of Carolina when North and South Carolina were a single colony. Maurice Moore had championed settlement of the Cape Fear region under Governor George Burrington. Additionally, Moore's uncle, Colonel James Moore, was a military leader during the Yamasee War. Moore's nephew, Alfred Moore, served in the Continental Army under Moore's command, and would go on become an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Moore's niece, Mary, would later marry Moore's Continental Army colleague Francis Nash.

Moore's extended relations constituted the single most powerful family in the region, and were known by local settlers simply as "the Family". His nine aunts and uncles and seventeen siblings and cousins on his father's side married into other affluent families, thus developing a strong network in the region on which perpetuated "the Family's" wealth and influence. Additionally, this process of intermarriage consolidated the ownership of greater and greater numbers of slaves in each successive generation. By the time of the American Revolution, six of top ten largest slaveholders in the lower Cape Fear region were in some way related to Moore. The Moore family relied on the production of naval stores and lumber, as the Cape Fear was unsuited to mass cultivation of more profitable products and crops like rice and indigo.

One early description of Moore states that he spent his early years on his father's plantation, until that tract sold in 1761. In his adulthood, Moore married Anna Ivey, with whom he had two sons and two daughters, all of whom survived him at his death. One son, James Moore, Jr., would serve in the American Revolutionary War as a lieutenant before being permanently disabled by wounds received at the Battle of Eutaw Springs.