CAPTAIN JAMES P. MOORMAN

FROM: The History of Gallatin, Saline, Hamilton, Franklin, and Williamson Counties, Illinois (Chicago: Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1887).  P. 731-732.

          Capt, James P. Moorman, farmer an# teacher, was born in Lawrence County, Ohio, in 1841, one of eight children of James and Jane (Wilson) Moorman. The father, born in Virginia in 1812, was the son of James Moorman. Sr., a native of Virginia, of French origin, and who served in the war of 1812, first living in Kentucky and finally in Ohio. The father, educated, married in. Lawrence County, Ohio, in 1853, settled and purchased about 600 acres of land in Flannigan Township, this County, and afterward bought several hundred acres in Hardin County. While in Ohio he was a merchant for a time, then engaged in milling, then coal contractor the last several years. His later years were given exclusively to farming, and his ability in business showed in all. He died in 1856, and the mother, born in Ohio in 1820, is still living in Hamilton County, a member of the Missionary Baptist Church. With common school advantages, our subject began teaching at nineteen, continuing every winter until 1884, since then he has been devoted to his fine farm of nearly 300 acres of the old home, which has been nearly all his own accumulation. In January, 1864, he married Mary, daughter of Alfred and Elizabeth Moore, born in Hamilton County in 1842. Seven of nine children are living: Amy, James A., Howard H., Emma F., Sarah, Nellie and Hattie. He has since lived on his present farm. In December, 1863. he enlisted in Company H, Thirteenth Illinois Cavalry, as private, but soon -became first lieutenant, and from June to September, 1865, captain, when his company was mustered out. He was in a scouting party chiefly, at Pine Bluff, on the Arkansas River. His brother, William H. of Company A, Fortieth Illinois, died in the service in December, 1861; John V., who enlisted in the One Hundred and Tenth Illinois, in 1862, and was with Sherman, and Zachary T., who was in his brother's command, and killed at Douglas Landing, Arkansas River, in December, 1864, were all brave soldiers. Two of his mother's brothers were killed at Cerro Gordo, in the Mexican war, and one of the father's brothers, in an Ohio regiment, was killed at Chickamauga. Oar subject stands among the first teachers of Hamilton County, and is an able man. He is a Republican, first voting for Grant; He is a member of the G. A. R. and the F. M. B. A. His wife and four children are members of the Missionary Baptist Church.