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<br /> United States Department of the Interior
<br /> National Park Service/National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
<br /> NPS Form 10-900 OMB Control No.1024-0018
<br /> Moorefields (Additional Documentation) Orange County, N.C.
<br /> Name of Property County and State
<br /> his property equally among his children. His will stipulated that his assets remain undivided until
<br /> all of his debts were settled by Waddell and for two years thereafter. Furthermore, in the interim,
<br /> his sister Sarah Louis was to be given Moorefields to live in as long as she remained unmarried
<br /> and Sarah was to care for his three unmarried daughters until they wed. The language Moore, Jr.
<br /> used was highly egalitarian as well as protective, stating that the three unmarried daughters "shall
<br /> have an equal right of residence in the house at Moorefields, and use of all its furniture and
<br /> comforts, as is given their aunt...Sarah...and also that their right shall equally extend to the farm
<br /> and its produce, and all other benefits that may or shall result therefrom."66 Moore, Jr.'s clear
<br /> intention was that Sarah should act as the head of household at Moorefields, presiding over his
<br /> domestic affairs as she had in his lifetime(presumably since the death of his wife in 1816),writing
<br /> "that my sister shall occupy my place as chief, and things to exist after my death, as they did in
<br /> my lifetime, to live together in peace and affection as one family and on one common fund of
<br /> subsistence."67
<br /> Despite these clear wishes, Waddell was named the head of household at Moorefields in the 1840
<br /> decennial census.68 Although the census-taker recorded only the ages and genders of the
<br /> Moorefields' occupants, the analyzed data provides a complete picture of Moorefields' third and
<br /> fourth generations of tenants in 1840. The house had to have been bursting at the seams, as it held
<br /> Sarah Louise Moore and Augusta Williams Moore, both of whom never married; Emma Sinclair
<br /> Moore Cameron, her husband William E. Cameron, and their first child, William Cameron(1838-
<br /> 1845); and Waddell, his wife, Elizabeth Davis Moore Waddell, and their eight oldest children.69
<br /> Additionally,46 enslaved persons were residing at Moorefields in 1840,making it one of the larger
<br /> enslaved communities in Orange County in the late antebellum period.70
<br /> In 1907, Moore, Jr.'s grandson by Susanna Henrietta—Alfred Moore Waddell (1834-1912)
<br /> published a memoir in which he waxed lyrically about his youth at Moorefields in the late 1830s
<br /> and 1840s. His recollections mention only three enslaved persons by name: Abel, Sarah, and Bob.
<br /> These few names underscore the marked reduction of enslaved peoples at Moorefields between
<br /> 1840 and 1850. While the family enslaved as many as 46 souls in 1840, by the 1850 decennial
<br /> census, Francis Nash Waddell, the nominal head of household at Moorefields, enslaved five
<br /> people: two women aged 70 years, one man aged 75, a girl of six and a boy of eight.71 The drastic
<br /> reduction in the enslaved community in one decade suggests either a change in attitude regarding
<br /> enslavement or a huge downturn of fortune for the white Moore-Waddells living at Moorefields.
<br /> By May 1847,Waddell had settled his deceased father-in-law's debts and finally instituted Moore,
<br /> Jr.'s final wish to divide his estate equally among his five daughters.72 Court-appointed
<br /> commissioners equitably divided Moorefields into five tracts worth roughly $1,070 while the
<br /> cemetery was subdivided separately (Figure 13). Augusta Williams Moore, spinster, was to get
<br /> Tract 1, which held the house, but notes of the division suggest she ceded her share to her sister,
<br /> Elizabeth Waddell. With the exception of Tracts 1 and 2,which were kept by the family, Tracts 3-
<br /> 5 were quickly sold to individuals outside of the family. For the first time in three generations, the
<br /> 1,200-acre estate was broken up and divested.73
<br /> Section 8 page 31
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