John P. Moore was born April 25, 1855 near Hopkinsville, Kentucky to George Nicolas Moore and Mary Gatewood. The family moved in his youth to Missouri so his father could carry mail on a star route assisted by his son. John recalled the time he was riding his route and Indians gave him a scare but left him unharmed.
He later moved to Marion and when 22 years old married Leona White, daughter of John H. White and Emily McCoy, in Williamson County on May 1, 1878, who died in 1919. They had one son named Clyde Holden Moore who died in 1936. Clyde’s son passed away in Washington, DC in 1942. On January 19, 1927, John remarried to Miss Mary V. Beckham while living in Washington, DC.
In 1882, John served as Marion city Alderman under Mayor Leroy A. Goddard and also the next year, 1883, under Mayor James C. Jackson.
John went to Washington, DC in 1887 during Grover Cleveland’s first term as President. The first inaugural he saw was that of President Harrison and he took part in the inaugural parade. He was a Lieutenant in the District of Columbia Guard. He said he marched up near the head of the parade and had never seen such a rain as at that inauguration.
He said he also bought a ticket to the grandstand for that inauguration, but learned better the next time and always watched the parades from a Pennsylvania office window. Having seen every inauguration from the time of Harrison to the first inauguration of President Roosevelt he was considered an authority, and declared that the crowds which jammed the capitol at the time of Cleveland’s second inauguration he believed were the largest on record.
He recalled that for one inauguration Californians shipped 150 black horses to Washington to ride in the parade. And that of another inaugural, the entire Pennsylvania National Guard attended and required 65 minutes to pass the reviewing stand.
Mr. Moore, first appointed to office as a democrat later went into civil service and served in Washington for 45 years. His first federal work was as a clerk in the Treasury Department and then became an auditor with the Postal Service, where he served until 1917, when he transferred to the War Department during WWI until 1920. He then transferred to the General Accounting Office and remained there until his retirement in 1925.
After that, during the Florida boom, he remained in Washington and was employed by the British-American Real Estate Company where he made many friends among the British.
In January 1933, he and his wife returned to his old home in Marion and has made it that since then. After his return, John served as Chairman of the Old Age Assistance Program for this county and in 1938 was unsuccessful in a race for the Williamson County Board of Commissioners.
In 1941, when the Illinois Ordnance Plant was located in this county, John was one of the first and oldest in its employ and had the job of overseeing employees.
An active member of the First Baptist Church on W. Main St. in Marion, John was waiting for a ride to church on Sunday morning of April 8th, 1945 when he was stricken with a cerebral hemorrhage in front of his home at 509 S. Madison St. John was a brother to Dr. W.P. Moore and George Moore of Marion.
John’s wife Mary Beckham passed away in April 1968 and is buried next to John P. at Rose Hill Cemetery in Marion.
(Sources: Marion Weekly Leader, Carbondale Free Press, Federal Census Records, Marion Cemetery Records, compiled by Sam Lattuca on 7/29/2023)