The Amos Moore Home

Location: About five miles west of Mt. Jackson, Virginia, on Route 263, west side of the road.

Built: circa 1800

Owners:

Elizabeth Moore was a Pence, and was born and reared in this house. It appears to have been a family home passed down from generation to generation. According to a marriage certificate in the home of Mrs. Lizzie Click (an heir), Elizabeth Moore, mother of Amos Moore, was married to George Moore in 1837; so as she was born in this house, it probably was a hundred and sixty years old in 1937. Elizabeth Moore was one of the younger children.

Sold to Susan P. Schultz at a public sale, by special commissioners, for $6,135. She failed to comply with requirements, and the property was taken over by Dr. H.F. Schmucker for $6,000, the said Susan P. Schultz losing $135.00 from her share of the estate. March 25, 1910, the court adjudged Dr. H.F. Schmucker purchaser in place of Mrs. Susan P. Schultz, at $6,000.

April 21, 1916, Bernie Zirkle bought from Dr. H.F. Schmucker through commissioners for premises and a certain tract of land and buildings thereon, situated about five miles west of Mt. Jackson, known as the Amos Moore home place, being the same farm inherited from his mother, Elizabeth Moore, deceased, containing fifty-four acres more or less




Physical Description

The Amos Moore Home is a two story, rectangular log house which was weatherboarded with up and down clapboards. There is a brick chimney at the east side of the house. The hip-type roof is covered with metal. There are ten windows, with twelve and fifteen 6x10 panes and movable shutters. There is a small portico at the front, with a large six-paneled door with top lights. The door facing is grooved and has a wheel design at the top of each side. Along the south side of the house is a portico which has fallen down.

There are seven interior rooms, three of which are large. The ceilings are eight feet high and the walls are plastered and painted. Other doors in the house are two and three board doors, and there is a six paneled door; all of pine. The doors have iron butt hinges and iron knob latches, with question mark locks on the inside of the latch.

Not far from the house is a springhouse, built of native rock and covered with shingles.

South of the main house is a cellar made of stone, with a one-story smokehouse built over it; the smokehouse is made of logs. It has two windows with nine panes and a half window with six panes above and three below. There is one door, batten style. The floors are wide boards. The door has iron knob latches and butt hinges.

Historical significance

Tradition has it that during the Civil War, the people who lived here used to take a log out from under an upstairs window, put the children through the opening into the space between the porch roof and the ceiling and place a bed against the wall, thereby hiding the opening.

It is said that the spring near this house is bottomless. At one time, the story goes that some people took two balls of binder twine and tried to find the bottom, but could not do so. The spring comes out of a cliff of rock under a hill.

Mr. Amos Moore was in the service during the Civil War Between and was wounded several times; the most serious injury was received when he had the bone shot out of his right hand; he was unable to raise his right hand afterwards.




Source: Virginia W.P.A. Historical Inventory Project, 1937





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Created September 30 2001