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mcc-jrr_461-032
Moore - Landman Cemetery, 46-1 Summary Report, page 32
Considering that the INDEX TO LANDS shown on page 11 of this Summary Report includes entries for land purchases in Section 31, Township 4, Range 1 West (location of the Moore - Landman Cemetery, 46-1), by both Benjamin Harrison and David Moore, there is a pretty strong indication of the family relationships presented above and of a connection to the cemetery that is the subject of this report. Benjamin Harrison bought land in Section 31 in 1838, while David Moore bought land in the section in 1839. Asa Thompson was the original owner of the land that Benjamin Harrison eventually bought. Asa sold it in 1833 to William Weeden, builder of the Weeden House in Huntsville, where Maria Howard Weeden lived. In 1837 William Weeden sold the land to Richard Pryor (who could perhaps be the historical namesake of the current Hollywood movie actor), who in turn sold it to Benjamin Harrison. Benjamin sold the land in 1859 to William H. Lanier (one of the 3 Lanier brothers who owned much of the arsenal lands in the 1800s, at one time or another), who in turn passed it to his brother Isaac Alexander Lanier in 1867. Isaac Lanier sold the land to Samuel H. Moore in 1883. Samuel may have wanted the parcel simply because his grandfather (Benjamin Harrison) had owned it at one time. The possible connection to the George Moore who owned land in this general area per the 1830 census is not known at the time of this writing. On the other hand, Asa Thompson sold a parcel of land in Section 31 directly to David Moore in 1839. Upon David's death by 1846, the land would have passed into his estate, from which Samuel H. Moore was an inheritor. According to the interview of the REDSTONE ROCKET newspaper with Charles Burns in 1987, it was “Sam Moore” who “donated the land for the cemetery”. Considering the trail of the land ownership transfers and the known records of the life of Samuel H. Moore, it was only he who would have been in a position to make this donation of land for a “colored cemetery”. Of course, at one point, Mr. Burns called it the “old Sam Moore Cemetery”, which seems to indicate that Sam Moore was already using it as a cemetery (perhaps for his own family or slaves) before he donated the land for use as a black cemetery. It is known that Samuel H. Moore's family members for the most part were buried in the Maple Hill Cemetery in Huntsville, not on the arsenal lands. Maple Hill records from the OLD HUNTSVILLE MAGAZINE website show a burial for David Moore, died at age 56 on 23 September 1843, with 32 - (1963)