Agenda 02-03-2026; 8-i - National Register Recommendation for Moorefields

Browse Search

41 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service/National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 OMB Control No.1024-0018 Moorefields (Additional Documentation) Orange County, N.C. Name of Property County and State entreat with the Cherokee Nation for a peace treaty and to broker Euro-American expansion into Tennessee; by September of that year, however, Moore had resigned the commission from differences of opinion with his colleagues.106 Foregoing retirement altogether,Moore was appointed a justice of North Carolina's Superior Court by the state legislature in 1798. John Louis Taylor, Moore's biographer but also the first chief justice of the state superior court, said of Moore that "the acuteness of [his] intellect and his experience in business enabled him to decide very complicated cases, with great promptitude and general satisfaction."107 The next year, following the death of U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice James Iredell from North Carolina, President Adams recommended Moore's appointment to that position to the U.S. Senate. Moore was confirmed by Congress in early December 1799. He served as one of two Associate Justices (the second was Justice Oliver Ellsworth from Massachusetts) under Chief Justice John Marshall for the next four years. When court was in session, Moore took a carriage to Richmond, Virginia, to meet Marshall, then the two continued traveling farther north to the capital. Moore was on the bench when the court decided Marbury v. Madison in 1803,which"assert[ed] the right of American courts to overturn legislation deemed to violate the U.S. Constitution. [But] Moore did not participate in the decision because he was en route to the capital when arguments in the case were heard."108 During his tenure, Moore only issued one opinion, as Marshall delivered all of the rulings in that period save for two.109 Moore resigned in January 1804, citing poor health.110 Moore's biographers described him as an intelligent man, but also as "a small, frail man...[with a] delicate physique.""' He died at the age of 55 on October 15, 1810,at Bellefont,the home of his eldest daughter and her husband in Bladen County,North Carolina. He was buried in the St. Phillips Churchyard in Brunswick County.112 Moore's political life was capped by becoming the second (but also the last, to date) North Carolinian to the U.S. Supreme Court bench. Perhaps more significant at the statewide level, however, "as a founder of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,the nation's first public university to enroll students,Moore was a leader in early public education in the United States."113 With the loss of Buchoi,Moorefields—built by Moore in a period when the state's political center was shifting west—is the only building remaining that is directly associated with Moore. Moore is significant at the statewide level for his lifelong dedication to public service and his direct participation in the creation of the state's first public educational institution of higher learning. Therefore, the proposed Moorefields Historic District is eligible under Criterion B in the area of Politics/Government for its association with Alfred Moore (1755-1810). CRITERION C: SIGNIFICANCE IN RELATION TO ARCHITECTURE The author of the 1972 National Register of Historic Places nomination for Moorefields based the house's significance on its being"the home of the politically prominent Moore family" (Criterion B). Furthermore, because the house is also "architecturally important as one of the earliest appearances of the Federal style in the state,"it is eligible for listing in the National Register at the local level of significance under Criterion C for its early Federal architecture.'14 Indeed, the Moorefields house is a refined example in a "rural county which has been historically comprised Section 8 page 39