Prince George’s County & Washington DC (click for pictures)

Our 2006 vacation is well underway and haven’t had much time to update the old blog ‘till today. We arrived DC area on Wednesday to Cherry Hill Park, a very nice campground with onsite bus access to Metro system.

Thursday I spent the day with James Moore enjoying visits to places and properties where George Moore, my first ancestor to the American Colonies, is believed to have come. James has done considerable expert research on the Moore’s of Prince George’s County in the 17th & 18th centuries. The best reconstruction at present is that George, older brother William and younger John landed at Mt. Calvert on the Patuxent River with their parents, John and Mary Moore, sometime around 1695 when about 15. Visiting the site we saw the likely landing spot below the brow of a hill where Jim’s ancestor James Sr. operated an Ordinary (tavern &general store) a few years later. John and his family may have come from Barbados or the British Isles and stayed with James Sr. at a nearby property named Four Hills. John died within a short time of his arrival and Mary remarried Martin Faulkner, then after his death Hugh Ryley.

George apparently went on his own after 1703 and in about 1715 married Elizabeth Lucas. We visited St. Barnabas Church on Leland Road west of US301 northwest of Mt. Calvert. The current Episcopal/Anglican church stands where the older brick church was located at the time when George and Elizabeth were possible married there and where two or more of their children were baptized. Inside we saw the painting of the Last Supper and the Baptismal Font preserved from the old church that was there when George and his family attended.

Then we went to the Patuxent Research Refuge and were given a tour that came as close as we could go to the location of Moore’s Industry, a 100 acre property owned by George sometime before 1723. We couldn’t go exactly where the property was on the west bank of the Patuxant between Duvall Bridge and Cash Lake because it is currently in a Whooping Crane protective area, but looking down the river from the bridge I could picture it close by. We were guided by the Refuge director Nancy Morrison who very graciously drove us to a number of sites on the preserve, including the Snowden cemetery and nearby ruins of Birmingham, Richard Snowden III's home and whose iron foundries and land holdings were the source of the Snowden’s wealth and prosperity.

George obtained several properties from Richard Snowden, including Moore’s Industry and Moore’s Rest located on the western side of the Little Paint Branch (creek) about five miles north of Cherry Hill Road where our campground was located. Jim and his wife Madeline had taken us on a hike along the Little Paint near the campground on our first day here. I managed to walk into several patches of Poison Ivy along the bank while taking pictures, but with no ill effect after washing my legs with soap and water soon after.

There was more to the genealogical information, insight and familiarization than I can relate in this report, but I thoroughly enjoyed it all and cannot say enough about the help, guidance and understanding and documentation supplied by my friend Jim. He and his wife have been most hospitable and helpful in all we’ve done and seen while here in Prince George’s County – the home of my family’s American roots.