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

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30 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 such a plantation would be eligible as a summer residence. It contains 206 acres of tillable land tolerably good and well watered, about three quarters of a mile from Pittsborough. There is a snug log-cabin in which he now lives, with a small dairy, kitchen, stable and corn-crib; also a new framed house, only shingled and weather-boarded, about 31 feet by 21, ten feet pitch. Very good springs convenient.48 Hillsborough was not merely a summer resort, however. By 1800,the inhabitants of Hillsborough had grown modestly to 474 persons,but among them were men of property and prestige, including Moore, who had been elevated to the state's Supreme Court by 1798 and then appointed an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1800.49 This coterie of privilege, however, belied the general condition of the backcountry in the early 19th century, which was one of economic stagnation and perpetuation of the status quo. The Eastern section of the State with a concentration of large planters was satisfied with their situation.The planters,who dominated the legislature,preferred to keep things as they were and generally opposed making changes and investing heavily in new ideas and technology. ...Without the introduction of new farming methods to renew soils' fertility, the soil of the Piedmont was eroding and becoming less and less productive with time. The lack of reliable transportation also encouraged retention of the Piedmont farmer's conservative way of life. The rivers were too shallow and the roads too undependable to provide a guaranteed way to get extra produce to market, and so subsistence farming was rather entrenched." In the early 19th century, the majority of Orange County landholders were subsistence farmers cultivating corn, wheat, oats, peas, and potatoes alongside cattle, pigs, and sheep for their own families' consumption. Landholdings were small on average (less than 500 acres) in Orange County in 1790, and only 5% of Orange County landowners between 1752 and 1800 owned more than 1,000 acres. Moore, as a Senator representing Brunswick County with a rice plantation in the lower Cape Fear region and over 1,200 acres in Orange County, was an eastern elite. Moore, presumably,would have been considered the creme de la creme of Hillsborough society and likely out-of-step with the majority of poorer, yeoman farmers who populated the backcountry during the Federal period.sl From Summer Retreat to Family Home under Alfred Moore, Jr. (1810-1837) That Moorefields was only a seasonal, second home during Moore's lifetime is evidenced by his being enumerated only in Brunswick County in the 1790 and 1800 federal censuses as well as his wish to be buried in Saint Philip's Episcopal Church cemetery in Brunswick County. Moore's second son, Alfred Moore, Jr., inherited both Buchoi and Moorefields upon his father's death in October 1810. For the first decade of Moore, Jr's ownership, Moorefields was still used as a seasonal home for him and his family.52 This is perhaps best evidenced by family correspondence and the obituary of Rebecca C. Moore, who died of a pulmonary complaint while traveling from Wilmington to Hillsborough in late May of 1816.53 Section 8 page 28