R262

Single woman: Clarinda (Clara) Moore
Father: Thomas Moore [R260]
Mother: Martha (Wood) Moore [R260]
Born: ~1800
Died: ~1855, in West Virginia

Clara was the last of Thomas and Martha Moore’s children left in Botetourt County, after her brothers and sisters moved (mostly) to Randolph County W.Va. The 1850 census of Botetourt County shows Clara, 50, living with her father (80) and mother (75). Her father died the next year. Soon after, Clara appears to have moved to Randolph County to be with their kin: in 1855 Clara and her Randolph County brothers and sisters sold their shares of the Botetourt County land their father bequeathed to them, in a single deed, to Davis Morton Wood [R255] (Randolph County DB33-328).

There is ambiguity about where Clara died. The Randolph County Death Records say “Clarenda Moore, parents Thomas and Martha Moore” died there, 8/1855 [S057]. On the other hand [S031] also found a death record in Barbour County W.Va. that names “Clarinda, daughter of Thomas & Martha Moore, d. August 1856.” There is no tombstone for Clara in the Mingo cemetery, but it may just be that 1855 was before inscribed stones were used there [see S161]. She may lie beneath one of the shapeless chunks of native stone, like those in the foreground of Fig. R022e, that mark forgotten early burials in that cemetery. So may her mother, Martha (Wood) Moore [R260]. Those stones may once have had names written or scratched on them, but no more.

Sources: [S077, S083]