WHY THE JOURNAL?

We are aware that the publishing of a journal in the interest of a single family is an innovation-but this is an age of innovations. We think there are reasons that justify it for at least a few years.

The Re-union of 1890 was to those who attended it the occasion, in its line, of a lifetime. It was looked forward to by hundreds of cousins, even those of mature years with more than ordinary anticipationsit certainly was enjoyed by all present as heartily as any gathering that ever convened, and is looked back upon, as a happy experience, as one of the sunny sketches of life's pathway.

There was only one drawback- that so many more than the favored 365, who so much desired to attend were providentially hindered.

We shall endeavor through this medium to keep the widening family in touch with each other, enabling them to locate them where residence has been changed, to wish at least in their hearts much joy to those who marry, to feel a throb of pleasure with those who welcome new and sweet faces to their households and to shed the tear of sorrow with those in whose homes there is a vacant chair.

During the next six months we should be glad to receive and publish any information that may be considered of interest to the cousins, so far as our brief space will permit.

We find it exceedingly difficult to secure authentic data for giving correct sketches of the lives of all John More's children and any certain things concerning them even though not considered important may become quite so in making up the story of their lives-we will not agree to publish all these matters in the Journal, but can use them all in the history of the family.

We have received quite a general response to the circulars sent out for subscribers to the Journal. We send sample copies to many who have not yet subscribed, hoping that they will do so before the next issue.

To perfect the Gépeological Record we will be greatly obliged for any information concerning the following cousins and their descendants : 3 David Smith More (son of 2 David son of 1 John) who died

in Milwaukee, Wis., and 3 John H. 3 Thomas H., and 3 Robert H. More (sons of 2 Alexander, son of 1 John.)

The officers of the Columbian Visitors' Asso

ciation (see page 8) have been corresponded with and they have kindly offered the use of their large parlors free, for our one day's Re. union on condition that a fair number of our clan become members of their Association or engage accommodations with them during their stay in Chicago. It is difficult to overstate the advantage that would thus be afforded the large number of cousins who will no doubt attend the Exposition. Think of having a hundred Mores under the same roof for ten days. It would be an event worth waiting 400 years to enjoy.

Their proposition has been submitted to the officers of our Family Association and they very heartily urge its acceptance, and hope that many of the cousins will avail themselves of this rare privilege. A meeting of the General Committee will be held before the next issue of the JOURNAL, and a date will be selected for the Reunion and a committee of arrangements appointed.

In order that we may know how far this meets the approval of the cousins, we will be glad to receive the names of all who become members of the Visitors' Assoctation before our next issue.

THE FAMILY HISTORY.

The Committee on The History of the More Family report substantial progress. The work has so far advanced as to be placed in printers hands and sample pages will soon be sent out. The book will be a Royal octavo of 300 pages well bound in half roan. Every family of the clan will want a volume. About 200 have subscribed for it-there should be at least 150 more subscribers. As it will be largely illustrated and finely and firmly bound, it cannot be furnished for less than $5.00, which is the price placed upon it.

The committee will soon through a circular ask for the additional subscriptions and for an advance payment of one half the price to meet the expense of salaried labor that will be necessary to complete the work. We trust that there will be a prompt response to their request.

It has been found impracticable to furnish an acceptable Journal for the Association at a suscription price of twenty-five cents a year. The price has been advanced to 50 cents, but the JOURNAL will be sent for this year to all who have paid the smaller price. It is hoped that many more of the family will subscribe and by thus dividing the burden, make it unappreciable to any. There is no pecuniary profit in the periodical for any one.

We present in our columns this time the faces of the chairmen of two important committees of the Re-union, Charles C. More of Poughkeepsie, N. Y., chairman of the General Committee and Jay Gould, of New York City, chairman of the Monument Committee. 4 Charles C. More, son of 3 Alexander, son of Robert, son of 1 John, was born in Blenheim, Schoharie County, New York, Sept. 18, 1828. Alexander moved to Moresettlement soon after and purchased the farm of his father, Robert More. Charles lived with his parents upon this farm until he was 21 years of age. He then spent a couple of years in mercantile business with his elder brother, W. C. More, at Rondout, N. Y. In the meantime he married Sarah Catharine, daughter of Daniel LeFevre, proprietor of the tannery between Moresville and Prattsville. He purchased soon after the LeFevre Homestead, on which he lived until 1858, when he sold it and soon after purchased the residence and extensive farm near Prattsville, known as the Smedburg place. This he greatly improved and sold in 1866 at a great advance, farm lands in that section having reached the greatest value they have ever known. With his wife he then

spent some time in visiting our country, traveling over nearly every part of the United States and Canada. He visited the Pacific Coast in 1871 spending the winter in California. He then spent a year or two in the lumber business on the Mississippi, at Moline, Ill. About this time he purchased an interest in the Moline Pump Company. He also invested quite freely in Wisconsin pine lands. Since 1878 he has owned and conducted two large dairy farms, one of 600 acres at Pine Plains, Dutchess County, New York, and the other of 450 acres in East Roxbury, Delaware County, New York. He keeps on these two farms about 150 cows, sending the milk by rail to New York City. He has his residence in the city of Poughkeepsie, from which point he operates his various properties. Mr. More is one of the most successful farmers in the State. He has from the start taken a deep interest in the monument and family reunion and the permanent family association. He was chosen chairman of the General Committee and also president of the Permanent Association. The history of the family will contain a more extended sketch of his life.

The Reformed Church of Roxbury, in which the Reunion exercises were held, has passed away. During the night of Sunday, November 22, 1891, it took fire and was entirely consumed.

It is a mystery how it caught fire, as it is said that the fire in one stove is known to have been entirely out, and in the other but little was left when the church was closed after the evening service. There was no insurance on the building, the Ladies' Society, however, had the furniture insured for $600. The building was valued at $5,000.

This is a sad blow to our friends in Roxbury, who so kindly entertained us in their homes, and as freely threw open their church for our use. There were great ears that the intense heat would injure, if not ruin the monument, but the distance from the building proved sufficient to preserve it from injury.

For this preservation we should be profoundly thankful. The Reformed Church of Roxbury has been so closely identified with the More family that no history of the family could be written without reference to it.

Ozias S. Decker, of Roxbury, has kindly furnished us with the following facts concerning the church of our Fathers. "I find that in 1802, April 30, a Rev. Mr. Freleigh held a meeting in Roxbury, at which time John T. More was made a member of the church and elected a deacon. On August 26, 1804, another meeting was held at which Elenora Laraway, wife of John T. More, and Deborah Person, wife of Jonas More, were received as members.

"I find that 62 members of the More family, including those marrying into the family, have been members of this church.

'Liberty Preston was made elder of the church, September 30, 1830, and continued as such until his death, in January, 1882.

"Jacob Keator was elected to the eldership Nov. 19, 1835, and held the office until March, 1882. It seems that the Rev. Joshua Boyd preached here occasionally as a missionary, from 1802 to 1825. Rev. Winslow Page, of Gilboa, occupied the pulpit at various times during this period.

"Jonas More sold by quit claim deed the church lot and old burying ground to Major General Otis Preston and David Smith, as trustees of the Presbyterian Church, for the sum of $50, which was no doubt really a gift, the money being used as a valuable consideration to make the sale legal.

"The old church seems to have been built about 1825. The new church (the one burned) was erected during the summer and autumn of 1866. The first frame blew down on July 4, 1866; the second met a like fate soon after, the third one stood. We cannot

give the cost of the old church, the new one cost $6,500; would probably not have cost over $5,000,

had it not blown down twice. The additon to the burying ground was given by Hon. Edward I. Burhans, somewhere in the seventies. Jonas More gave the sheds-he erected them-those who occupied the stalls were to pay for and own them. Liberty Preston paid for his, none of the rest were paid for, and with characteristic liberality Jonas gave them to them. "The first call to a pastor on record was to Rev. O. Bronson, in 1835. He was installed July 7, 1835. He remained about a year, when services seem to have been omitted very generally until 1839, when the Rev. Mr. Knight was installed.

"The Records of the early years of the church are very meagre. Later pastors were Rev. Mr. Evans, Rev. W. E. Turner, Rev. J. Keiley Rhinehart, Rev. B. F. Miller, and Revs, Archalarius, Knight, Schmidt and Demarest."

John P. More and David Smith were also deacons in the church, and James E. More and Otis P. More have been elders in it. It is not improbable that the new church, which the congregation hope to secure, will be located nearer the centre of the village. Should this be done, the church yard will doubtless be added to the cemetety, bringing it down to the main street of the village. In this case the monument will be finely located in the northwest corner of the cemetery.

It may be best to change the location, but if it is done it will forever dissever the future church from the spot where many of us received the first and deepest religious impressions of our lives.

We are glad that it was permitted to remain until the great family gathering should fill it to its utmost capacity, and fix it in all our memories so distinctly in its connection with our widespread clan and with the interesting and impressive exercises of our great meeting. We doubt not that not a few of the cousins who have gone far out from the green valley that sleeps so sweetly in the embrace of the great mountains, will wish to furnish a brick or a tale of bricks for the new structure, in memory of the days gone by and the loved ones who have entered into the house above, who were once a part of the company who formed that church in its former days.

SPECIAL ATTENTION

Is called to the Circular of the Columbian Visitors' Association, on another page, to the items about Subscribers to this Journal and to the History of the Family. An Important Circular will soon be issued by the Historical Committee. It is important that prompt attention be given to it.

Having mastered the regular mathematics, he made himself practically acquainted with surveying. At the age of fifteen he became a partner with his father in the hardware store which he had purchased from Mr. Burhans. Even at that age he made the purchases in Albany and New York City, creating so favorable an impression as to gain credit from such firms as Ransom, Rathbone & Co., Albany, and Phelps, Dodge & Co., of New York. In 1852, when but sixteen years old, he engaged in a survey for a map of Ulster County, N. Y. His employer becoming embarrassed and failing, he having received as yet no salary but keeping a copy of his surveys, took matters into his own hands and published the map himself, from the sale of which he realized quite a respectable sum. The next year he made a map of Albany County, New York. He made a map also that summer of the village of Cohoes, N. Y., which netted him five hundred dollars.

The same year he surveyed and laid out the Albany and Niskayuna plank road. This was a difficult task but was satisfactorily done and he was liberally rewarded.

In

The amount of hard work done by him during this, his seventeenth year, is almost incredible. accomplishing it he invariably rose before daybreak and seldom retired before midnight.

During his eighteenth year, by employing assistants, he made maps of Delaware County, N. Y., and two counties in Ohio. During this summer -1854-he gave sixty days to the survey of a proposed railway from Newburg, N. Y., to Syracuse. In accomplishing this he overworked himself, and in an hour after he completed his detailed report he was completely prostrated by illness. His recovery

was very slow. He sold out his interest in his maps, and being for a time at leisure, wrote from notes made during his survey, the History of Delaware County, a creditable book of 450 pages.

This was all accomplished by Mr. Gould before he was twenty-one years of age.

The above facts are gleaned from a sketch of his life prepared for the coming family history by his sister, Mrs. Sarah B. Northrop, of Camden, N. J.

THE SIX GENERATIONS OF THE

MORE FAMILY.

THE SECOND GENERATION.

They have all passed on before us. Their deaths and ages were as follows:

ROBERT, February 19, 1849, aged 77.
JONAS, March 5, 1852, aged 74.

ALEXANDER, T., March 11, 1854, aged 79 years.
JOHN T., June 23, 1857, aged 86.

father, who reached the very unusual age of 95.

What a record for longevity-every child filling out the allotted three score and ten years, and each added from four to seventeen years. Such records are not numerous. They all honored their father and mother, and their lives were long in the land, according to the command and promise of God.

THE THIRD GENERATION.

While the Second Generation might aptly be called an example in addition, the Third might be very justly termed a decided case of multiplication. Eighty-eight grandchildren, related as follows:

James, 6; Robert and Jonas, each 9; John T. and Jane, each 12; David and Edward L, each 13, and Alexander 14 children.

The first born of these was John L. More, son of John T., born in More Settlement, on the place now owned by Charles G. Keator, where the old stone house now stands, May 11, 1793, the latest born being Margaret, daughter of Edward L., born in March. 1834, covering a period of 41 years, during which time all these eight families lived in the town of Roxbury, N. Y., none of them separated more than seven miles from the others.

Of this number there are now living but fifteen, four having died since the Re-union. Those living are David L., Jersey City, N. J., son of John T.; Henry F., Findlay Lake, N. Y., son of Robert; William W., Castle Mont., son of Alexander T.

All of the families of James and Jonas are gone. Robert Bruce Smith, of Cortland, N. Y, alone survives of all Jane's children.

Six of David's children are living: At Walton, N. Y., are Mrs. Jessie B. More, Hezekiah, Edmund, Mrs. Elizabeth Cone and Mrs. Harriet Guild, and at Marvin, N. Y., Daniel Q. Five of Edward L's. children survive: Richard, Roxbury, N. Y.; Peter S., Sidney, N. Y.; Duncan, Cortland, N. Y.; Mrs. Lydia S. Coville, Oxford, N. Y, and Isaac VanLoan, Maysville, Mo.

FOURTH GENERATION.

This consists of 344 individuals-the great-grandchildren of John and Betty. Seventy-five of them have died unmarried, most of them in youth, and thirty-six after marriage, leaving 233 of them now living. This is the generation now bearing the responsibilities and heavier burdens of life.

FIFTH GENERATION.

Of this generation there have been 537; 114 died unmarried and 1 married, leaving 422 now living. These are our young people.

SIXTH GENERATION.

This consists of 141. Of these 6 have died, leaving 135 living. These are the children of the great clan :

JANE MORE SMITH, June 5, 1861, aged 81.

JAMES, May 19, 1866, aged 84.

EDWARD L., August 13, 1867, aged 79. DAVID, November 29, 1873, aged 87.

David lived one year longer than John T., two years longer than his mother, but eight less than his