"MOORE, Enoch W.
Dr. Enoch W. Moore, who has been engaged in the practice of medicine at Decatur since 1856, is a descendant of the earliest American family to settle in Illinois. His ancestors were Scotch-Irish, and, on their emigration to America, settled in Virginia. His grandfather, James Moore, was a captain in the Virginia forces during the war of the revolution. He came with his family to Illinois in the year 1781. He was accompanied by a family named Garretson. These were the first American families to settle permanently in Illinois. Kaskaskia had been founded by the French a hundred years previous, but no American or English families came to the country till the time of the revolution. James Moore first came to Kaskaskia, and soon afterward settled at Bellefontaine near the present town of Waterloo, in Monroe county. Other families subsequently came from Virginia and other states, and the American settlement extended to the Mississippi Bottom, which, in consequence, was called the American Bottom. James Moore was about thirty years of age when he came to Illinois. He was a man of considerable energy and force of character. He died about the year 1787. He put a fine farm under cultivation, and the year of his death had one hundred acres of wheat. Wheat at that time commanded a dollar a bushel at Kaskaskia. The French residents of that place were but little inclined toward agriculture, and scarcely raised enough grain for their own consumption.

The father of the subject of this biography (Enoch Moore) was born at Bellefontaine in February, 1783. He was the first male child born of American parents within the limits of the present State of Illinois. He died in Monroe county in the year 1848. He was a man highly respected in that part of the state, and held several important public positions. For many years he was clerk of the circuit court, and for about twenty years judge of the probate court. He was a representative from Monroe county in the state legislature, and a member of the convention which met at Kaskaskia, in the summer of 1818, and framed the first constitution of the State of Illinois. Dr. Moore's mother was Mary Whiteside, daughter of Colonel William Whiteside, one of the pioneer settlers of Monroe county. She was born at the head of the Big Elkhorn, in Kentucky, and was five years old when she came to Illinois, in the year 1793. The Whitesides were Kentuckians, and were celebrated as Indian fighters. In the annals of the early history of this state are recorded many incidents of daring and bravery in which members of the Whiteside family prominently figured.

Dr. Moore was the seventh of a family of ten children, and was born near Waterloo, in Monroe county, on the seventh of December, 1821. His boyhood was spent in his native county. He attended school at Waterloo, and secured the elements of a good English education, principally under the instruction of Nathan Scarritt, a teacher of more than ordinary ability. For some time he taught school. In the fall of 1849, he began the study of medicine at Columbia, in Monroe county, with Dr. Knott. He received his medical education in the medical department of the St. Louis University, now the St. Louis Medical College. He graduated from this institution in March, 1853. In the year 1851, he began the practice of his profession at Carlisle, Illinois. He became a resident of Decatur in March, 1856, and at once established himself as one of the leading physicians. During the war of the rebellion he offered his services to the government, and was commissioned as surgeon of the One Hundred and Fifteenth Illinois Regiment. His regiment was attached to the Army of the Cumberland, and during his connection with it served in Kentucky and Tennessee. After seven months' service, he resigned on account of ill health, and resumed his medical practice at Decatur.

He was married in October, 1854, to Miss Annie B. Lockwood, a native of Philadelphia, daughter of Hon. Daniel C. Lockwood. She was connected with the Cummins family, one of whose members was Bishop Cummins of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and was a cousin of General Henry K. Lockwood of the United States Regular Army, now stationed at the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. Her death occurred in July, 1876. By this marriage he had three children, of whom only one, a daughter, is now living. Dr. Moore was originally a whig, and supported Henry Clay in the presidential election of 1844. On the dissolution of the whig party, his anti-slavery sentiments made him a republican. He voted for Freemont in 1856, the first nominee of the republican party for president, and has voted for every republican presidential candidate from that time to the present. For many years he has been a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Although his large practice has been of a general character for the last eight or ten years, he has devoted special attention to the diseases of women and children. Of thorough attainments as a physician, a diligent student of progressive medical science, and a man of the highest personal character, he has met with merited success in his profession."

History of Macon Co, IL, 1880 - p. 142

Submitted by: William L. Baran