Clarence Moore (businessman)

{{For|other people with the same name|Clarence Moore (disambiguation)}}

{{Infobox person

|name = Clarence Moore

|image = Clarence Moore LCCN2014710275.jpg

|birth_date = {{Birth date|1865|03|01}}

|birth_place = Clarksburg, West Virginia, U.S.

|death_date = {{Death date and age|1912|04|15|1865|03|01}}

|death_place = Atlantic Ocean

|education = Dufferin College, London, Ontario

|occupation = Businessman

|spouses = {{Unbulleted list

|{{Marriage|Alice McLaughlin|end=died||1897}}

|{{Marriage|Mabelle Swift|June 20, 1900}}

}}

|children = 6

}}

Clarence Moore (March 1, 1865 – April 15, 1912) was a prominent American businessman and sportsman. In 1909, he built a large home in Washington, D.C. that now serves as an embassy of Uzbekistan. Moore died after a leisure trip to England, on his way home as a first class passenger on the RMS Titanic when it sank in the North Atlantic.

Early life and ancestors

Moore was born in Clarksburg, West Virginia, in 1865 to Jasper Yates Moore (1834–1907), a legal clerk, and Frances Elizabeth Reynolds (1842–1894), both of Virginia. Younger brother Frank Reynolds Moore (1869–1954) joined the family four years later and they lived in Harrison County, West Virginia into the 1880s. Moore had a private school education, then attended and graduated from Dufferin College in London, Ontario.{{cite web |url=https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-victim/clarence-moore.html |title=Clarence Moore |website=Encyclopedia Titanica |date=December 14, 1999 |access-date=February 20, 2019 }}{{cite news |url=https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/clarence-moore-lost-life-well-known-capital.html |newspaper=Washington Times |date=April 16, 1912 |title=Clarence Moore, Who May Have Lost His Life, Well Known in Capital |access-date=February 20, 2019 |via=Encyclopedia Titanica }} Moore's great-great-grandfather, Mordecai Moore, came to America from England in 1732 as Lord Baltimore Charles Calvert's private physician. Mordecai's son, Samuel Preston Moore, moved from Anne Arundel County, Maryland to Harrison County in about 1802.{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/genealogicalpers02butc |title=Genealogical and Personal History of the Upper Monongahela Valley, West Virginia |first=James Morton |last=Callahan |volume=II |page=[https://archive.org/details/genealogicalpers02butc/page/n340 663] |publisher=Lewis Historical |location=New York |year=1912 |editor-last=Butcher |editor-first=Bernard L. }}

Business career

Soon after his education, Moore explored and developed properties in West Virginia for coal mining, oil, and timber, partnering with Stephen Benton Elkins and Henry Gassaway Davis.{{cite news |url=https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/presidents-aide-among-passengers-crippled-ship.html |newspaper=Washington Times |date=April 16, 2012 |title=President's Aide Among Passengers on Crippled Ship |access-date=February 20, 2019 |via=Encyclopedia Titanica }} In September 1888, he accompanied T.C. Crawford of the New York World and John B. Floyd to visit Devil Anse Hatfield in Logan County, West Virginia.{{cite news |title=Visiting the Hatfields |url=https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026844/1888-10-08/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=1888&index=0&rows=20&words=Clarence+Moore&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=West+Virginia&date2=1888&proxtext=clarence+moore&y=7&x=20&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1 |newspaper=Wheeling Intelligencer |date=October 8, 1888 |via=Chronicling America |access-date=December 15, 2021 |page=1 |volume=XXXVII |number=39 }} He moved to Washington, D.C., in 1890 and began working for the William B. Hibbs & Co. brokerage firm in 1891, for which he received an annual salary in 1910 of $25,000,{{cite news |url=http://72.52.242.20/~washingt/sites/default/files/March%202010.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110810221900/http://72.52.242.20/~washingt/sites/default/files/March%202010.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=August 10, 2011 |newspaper=The InTowner |date=March 2010 |pages=8–9 |access-date=February 20, 2019 |title=Scenes from the Past }} {{Inflation|US|25000|1910|fmt=eq|r=-3}}. Moore raised cattle and horses on farmland he owned in Montgomery County, Maryland, and had some real estate investments near Leesburg, Virginia.

RMS ''Titanic'' fate

File:After midnight selling extras. There were many young boys selling very late these nights. Youngest boy in the group... - NARA - 523536.jpg

File:Titanic voyage map.png

Moore left Washington in mid-March 1912 for what his wife said was a pleasure trip to England. The main purpose of his trip was to find and buy English Foxhounds for the Loudoun Hunt. While there, he also attended the Grand National horse race. Moore bought 50 pairs (100) of the dogs and booked first class travel back to the U.S. for himself and his English manservant, Charles Henry Harrington. They boarded the RMS Titanic on April 10 at Southampton with ticket number 113769 at a cost of £42, 8s,{{cite news |url=https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/clarence-moore.html |newspaper=The New York Times |title=Clarence Moore |date=April 16, 1912 |via=Encyclopedia Titanica |access-date=February 22, 2019 }} {{Inflation|UK|42.4|1912|fmt=eq|r=-1|cursign=£}}, or about ${{Significant figures|{{To USD|{{Inflation|UK|42.4|1912|r=0}}|GBR|round=yes}}|3}}. Moore had originally planned to transport the dogs with him on the Titanic, though ultimately made other arrangements for them.{{cite book |last1=Eaton|first1=John P.|last2=Haas|first2=Charles A.|year=1999|title=Titanic: A Journey Through Time|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8UOtbCmR5NgC|publisher=W. W. Norton|location=New York|isbn=978-0-3930-4782-0|page=234}}

According to survivor accounts, on the night of the ship's iceberg collision and sinking, Moore was playing cards in the smoking room with his dining companions and fellow Americans, Major Archibald Butt, Harry Elkins Widener, and William Carter (husband of Lucile).{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/sinkingoftitanic00mowb |title=Sinking of the Titanic |year=1912 |last=Mowbray |first=Jay Henry |publisher=Minter |location=Harrisburg, Pennsylvania |access-date=February 23, 2019 |pages=127, 143, 184 }} Among the stories Moore told that evening was how he had helped a newspaper reporter interview Anse Hatfield, the patriarch on one side of the infamous Hatfield–McCoy feud.{{cite book |title=A Night to Remember |url=http://www.you-books.com/book/W-Lord/A-Night-to-Remember |first=Walter |last=Lord |author-link=Walter Lord |publisher=Penguin |year=2012 |isbn=978-0-241-96236-7 |via=you-books.com |access-date=February 22, 2019 |chapter=Another Belfast Trip }} According to Col. Archibald Gracie IV, at around 2:00AM, Clarence Moore, along with friends Major Archibald Butt, painter Francis Millet, and lawyer Arthur L. Ryerson returned to their usual table in the First-Class Smoking Lounge and played a final hand of cards before shaking hands and departing. The Washington Times wrote that Moore and Butt, who was also from Washington, remained together until jumping into the water as the ship went down. Their bodies were never recovered.{{cite news |url=https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/survivor-tells-heroism-clarence-moore.html |title=Survivor Tells of the Heroism of Clarence Moore |date=April 22, 1912 |newspaper=Washington Times |access-date=February 23, 2019 |via=Encyclopedia Titanica }} Moore's employer and business associate, William B. Hibbs, went to New York, where many survivors were taken by the RMS Carpathia, and Brigadier General Edwards went to the White House at Moore's wife's pleading, though no additional information was available.{{cite news |url=https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/capital-residents-new-york-for-carpathias-coming.html |title=Capital Residents in New York for Carpathia's Coming |date=April 18, 1912 |newspaper=Washington Times |access-date=February 23, 2019 |via=Encyclopedia Titanica }}{{cite news |url=https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/president-friends-major-butt-fear-went-down-ship.html |title=President and Friends Of Major Butt Fear He Went Down With Ship |date=April 16, 1912 |newspaper=Washington Times |access-date=February 23, 2019 |via=Encyclopedia Titanica }}

Personal life and legacy

File:Clarence Moore House.JPG, Washington, D.C., 2008]]

Moore's first wife, Alice McLaughlin (1872–1897), was the daughter of Frank McLaughlin, former owner of the Philadelphia Times. She gave birth to two children, and died 12 days after bearing the second:

Frances Sarah Preston, September 14, 1894 – early October 1921, who married Henri Marquisan and died in Paris,{{cite news |url=https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/mrs-henri-marquisans-funeral.html |title=Mrs. Henri Marquisan's Funeral |date=October 12, 1921 |newspaper=New York Times |access-date=February 23, 2019 |via=Encyclopedia Titanica }} and
Samuel Preston, born July 5, 1897.

Moore married again on June 20, 1900, in Beverly, Massachusetts, to Mabelle Florence Swift (1878–1933), daughter and heiress of Chicago meat packer Edwin C. Swift (a brother of Swift & Company founder Gustavus). The couple had four more children, the first of whom died young:{{cite news |url=https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/mrs-wichfeld-dead-was-visiting-friends.html |newspaper=The New York Times |title=Mrs. Wichfeld Dead; Was Visiting Friends |date=February 4, 1933 |access-date=February 21, 2019 |via=Encyclopedia Titanica }}

Edwin Swift, November 25, 1901 – {{Death date and age|1907|01|11|1901|11|25}},
Jasper, November 30, 1905 – 1969, in Duncan, British Columbia,
Clarence Jr, born January 20, 1910, who attended Eton and Harvard and married Joan Ashton Lindsley on December 28, 1932, and
Lloyd, born November 29, 1911, who married and was divorced from Eppes Bartow Preston (née Hawes; 1901–1981), daughter of U.S. senator Harry B. Hawes.

Moore asked architects Jules Henri de Sibour and Bruce Price in 1906 to design a mansion for his family on land his wife had bought in 1901. Known as the Clarence Moore House, its construction was completed at 1746 Massachusetts Avenue NW in 1909. Moore died three years later and his widow remarried in 1915 to Danish immigrant Aksel C.P. Wichfeld, a year before he was appointed to the Danish legation, afterward only using the mansion for diplomatic and social events. She sold the property to the Government of Canada in 1927, after which it was used as a Canadian chancery and embassy.[https://historicsites.dcpreservation.org/items/show/388 "Clarence Moore Residence (Old Canadian Embassy)", DC Historic Sites.]{{cite web |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110605111115/http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pnp/habshaer/dc/dc0000/dc0045/data/dc0045.pdf |title=Historic American Buildings Survey: Clarence Moore House |publisher=National Park Service |website=Library of Congress |url=http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pnp/habshaer/dc/dc0000/dc0045/data/dc0045.pdf |archive-date=June 5, 2011 |url-status=dead |year=1978 |last=Wheeler |first=Lucy Pope }} Canada relocated their embassy to another property, officially opened in 1989, and sold the Massachusetts Avenue property in 1996 to the government of Uzbekistan, which also uses it as an embassy.{{cite web |title=Canadian Embassy in Washington gets facelift for more visitors |newspaper=The Western Star |date=February 26, 2008| url=http://www.thewesternstar.com/Arts/Cultural-activities/2008-02-27/article-1477256/Canadian-Embassy-in-Washington-gets-facelift/1 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303230647/http://www.thewesternstar.com/Arts/Cultural-activities/2008-02-27/article-1477256/Canadian-Embassy-in-Washington-gets-facelift/1 |archive-date=March 3, 2016 |agency=The Canadian Press }}{{cite web |url=http://www.uzbekistan.org/page/view?id=8 |title=About the Embassy |website=Embassy of Uzbekistan to the United States |access-date=February 21, 2019 |archive-date=August 31, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180831181251/http://uzbekistan.org/page/view?id=8 |url-status=dead }}

Though often cited as having the middle name "Bloomfield", Moore's birth, census, and passport records do not include a middle name. When his daughter was born in 1894, her father's name was listed as "Clarence Samuel Preston Moore". His name may have later been confused with that of another famous American of his time, archaeologist Clarence Bloomfield Moore (1852–1936).