Generally speaking, people get into this world about the same way, with different environment, however. My coming was on this wise: My father David Crocket Moore was born and grew to manhood in Rockingham County, Virginia. He was a well built man, of more than ordinary strength, and possessed a good brain. His school was limited to reading, writing and arithmetic, and not much of either. Father and mother were married in 1841, and five years later, April 8, 1846, I made my entrance into the world, being the second child in the family. My parents then lived in Salem, Virginia not far from where Roanoke now stands. My father being a painter as well as a carpenter, was much from home. Tho' I was only four years old when I left for the west, I can recall a few of the incidents that occured during my childhood in Virginia. Going West In the summer of 1850 the western fever took a firm hold on my parents, as well as on the others. Father sold what little property he had, procured two horses and fitted up a covered wagon for the long trip. Into this he loaded his family, and a few household goods for which room could be found. Twelve families in all, and on a set day, probably near the end of August relatives and friends gathered for the last sad farewells. A long string of covered wagons moved slowly up the winding road, and as they entered the hills disappeared for ever. The trip lasted six weeks, about fifty persons in all the company. Every evening the company went to camp, meals were cooked and served by the road side. Some of the people slept in their wagons, others in tents and some on the ground under their wagons. Such a trip was hard on men, women and beast. By and by Woodford County, Illinois was reached. Two years before, came James R. Gish, and my uncle, Phillip A. Moore, a young man who served in the Mexican War. On The Broad Prairie Here we are on the broad untamed prairie of Central Illinois. The land comparatively level, covered with a heavy growth of grass, with only an occasional small belt of timber. Father bought a small piece of land, eight acres and on it erected a log house, that he had purchased of some party in the woods a few miles away. The house had to be torn down in order to be moved. Father moved his family into the house, not over 20 feet square. Wolves would howl around our house. There were no fences and often when father was away from home, mother would close the door on the chicken house as early in the evening as possible, get the children into the house, lock the door and permit no one to venture out until morning. A life of this sort was trying for a mother left alone with her children. Early in the morning, one April morning after the grass had been burnt, and the warm sun shone out brightly, father with a stick in hand, and accompanied by myself, took a walk over that part of the prairie near our home. We had no Sunday Schools or meetings in our community. On this walk we had the time of our lives killing snakes. It seemed that every snake was out for a sun bath. Father disposed of the large ones, while I dispatched the smaller fellows. I often heard my father tell some of his neighbors that we killed one hundred snakes on this walk, and it was not a very good morning for snakes either. The country settled up rapidly, mainly by Virginians. Most of the people were well pleased with Illinois. But some grew homesick, often consoling themselves by singing "Carry Me Back to Old Virginia Once More". Two years passed and no religious services had yet been held in the community by the Brethren. My parents and only three others were members of this church in the county. Finally arrangements were perfected for preaching. What a time my mother had getting her four children well enough dressed to go to the meeting. I had an old wool hat that was as much at home in my pocket as it was on my head. This she washed and starched and ironed until it was as sleek and stiff as a laundered shirt. Selling The Farm... Our home was about two miles from a long belt of fine timber, embracing possibly one thousand acres, and known as Panther Creek. In this belt father owned five acres, and here we went for our wood, rails and fence posts. Many a day did I help father manipulate the cross cut saw. I could do little more than steady one end of the saw while father supplied the motive power. On these occasions, in the early spring, when the frost had just left the ground, father would bore a half-inch hole into a sugar maple tree, insert a spout made of elder and let the fine sugar water run in a bucket while we would go on about our sawing. Every hour or two we would fill up on sugar water, and I can recall no incident affording more downright pleasure than helping father in the woods of Panther Creek and drinking sugar water. After a few years my father sold his prairie farm and moved into the woods, and then later on to the prairie again. Before leaving the farm, I distinctly remember the deal as it took place in our house. The purchaser, a well-to-do German, came with a little bag of gold and a man authorized to execute deeds. The fifteen hundred dollars, the price of the land, was carefully counted out in gold coins of twenty dollars each. There were three stacks, each containing twenty-five twenty dollar old pieces, and as it stood on the table it made quite a showing. I watched every movement, and while the piles of gold made me open my eyes in wonder, still I was not old enough to fully understand what it all meant. In that day, among new settlers, this much money was considered a little fortune. Well, the German took away the deed, with mother's name also attached, and she received as a present a calico dress, for that was the custom in those pioneer days. Moving To Missouri... My parents had resided in Illinois six years, and, financially speaking, father was making money right along. But my mother's health was failing. The cold winters were too much for her, and for a year she was sick much of the time. The doctor lived twelve miles away and could only get out to see her twice a week. A change of climate was finally decided upon, so early in March, 1856, father having disposed of his property, we started west. At Secor, six miles south of where we lived, we boarded the cars for Peoria. There were then six children in the family. With the probable exception of father, this was our first experience on a railroad and we acted about like other people on their first railroad trip. I fell to wondering, should the train chance to leave the tracks, how far it would run out into the fields before it stopped. At Peoria we took passage on a steam boat for St. Louis, which point was reached the next afternoon. The steams were high, overflowing the banks for miles on either side. The ordinary country man in those days did not trust banks, so father had mother make a strong belt into which she sewed in sections, several hundred dollars in gold and wore this under her clothing the entire trip to Jefferson City where we entered a stage coach to complete our journey. Here we witnessed real slavery for the first time, when Negroes were ordered to pull the stage out of the mud with a yoke of oxen.

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