| Born
about 1832-1833 in Pennsylvania, Isaac's
parents ventured west in the early 1840's
along with his two sisters Mary Ann and Sarah
E. Moore. It was recounted by Isaac's cousin,
Thomas Anderson Moore, that Joseph was the
"black sheep" of the family and did
not notice him anymore because it was
considered very sinful to the rigidly
religious family that he played the fiddle at
balls and parties, and this his lively young
wife danced at them. It horrified the good
people and the family would have nothing to
do with them, so after leaving Ohio were the
Moores had settled, Joseph took his family to
Illinois. After settling in Collinsville,
Madison Co., Illinois, Joseph converted to a
Methodist and began making cow bells. He
hammered them out in a crude way and brazed
them in the forge fire. Finding there was a
great demand for them in the new country
where stock grazed in the open anywhere.
Joseph, who was a big, heavy-set man over six
feet tall, was failing in healthy and no
longer to work the forge and sent for his
brother James who brought his family out to
Collinsville in 1847.
The two
brothers had a stock bell factory situated at
Main and Aurora, and after the death of
Joseph in the summer of 1852, Isaac Cook
Moore took over his father's business. Later
managed by Oscar B. Wilson, the company was
sold to Christian Gottlieb "C G "
Blum, a German immigrant in 1876, whose son
Henry later took over the company, by then
known as Blum Manufacturing Co.
Isaac, despite
parents who had been shunned by their own
family, became very successful in
Collinsville and was well-liked. He became
the last president of the village board from
1868-1872, and in 1872 when the village
became a city government, Isaac was the first
mayor. That same year he formed the I.C.
Moore Fire Co., No. 1, donated a hand pumper,
and helped organize the volunteer group.
It
was said that Isaac found great delight in
the occasional practice of obtaining a double
handful of nickels, dimes and quarters, and
would toss them into the air so that the
youngsters could scramble for them when they
fell. He was considered one of the
wealthiest men of the community until his
investments took a slide and he was forced to
take a clerking job in a local store to earn
a living.
Isaac's
wife was Julia Caroline Slayback whom he
married on 23 Mar 1854. She was the daughter
of Solomon and Elly (House) and the mother of
their nine children. Isaac died in May of
1895 and was buried at Glenwood Cemetery.
|
