Lottie Lee Moore Crouch Lottie Lee (Moore) Crouch lives on the same farm, in the Meadow Valley Community, that has been in her family for 150 years. The Moore/Crouch land has lately been cut up by the new Highway 112171 by-pass intersection. The first Moore to migrate to Washington County was Samuel Moore, born 5 July 1783 at Martinsburg, West Virginia. In March 1805 at Gallatin, Sumner County, Tennessee, he married Elizabeth "Betsy" Pierce. They had one son, Joseph Pierce Moore, born 13 April 1806, and the young mother died 27 December 1807. On 27 December 1808 Samuel Moore second married Jane Dickson and they had eight children in Tennessee: Elizabeth, John Pavett, Nancy Isabella, Margaret Dickson, Martha Jane, Allen Mathis, Francis Marion and Mary Eliza. Samuel Moore was a lieutenant in the War of 1812, and a warm personal friend of General Andrew Jackson. Around 1836 the Moores moved to Washington County, Arkansas, where Samuel farmed, although he had earned his living in Tennessee making spinning machines. By 1846 he moved to Rusk, Cherokee County, Texas, where he died 8 March 1872. Samuel's oldest son Joseph P. Moore, on 18 October 1832, married Matilda Cummings Abbott at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where she was born 8 December 1813. In August 1837 they purchased the Moore/Crouch farm in Washington County, Arkansas. In the 1840s Joseph had a racehorse track, where the present highways intersect. Joseph and Matilda Moore had seven sons, who were raised on the homestead farm: Thomas Jefferson, Stephen, David, George Pierce, Joseph Pierce Jr. "Bud", Samuel and John. Their father died 27 November 1850 and was buried in a small family cemetery just north of the present barn, which contains eight family graves. David died in 1851, and in 1860 Steve, Sam, and Tom's young wife all died of typhoid and were buried there. Tom, George and Bud served in the Civil War. Tom took a slave with him when he went to war. In 1861, Bud dreamed Tom had died. A few days later, the slave returned home with Tom's horse, from Dardanelle, Arkansas, where he had died of typhoid. Tom's widowed mother Matilda raised his one year old daughter, and endured the hardships of the war, on this family farm. Their meat had to be hidden in nearby woods, from raiding armies and bushwhackers. Tom's hidden violin was discovered and stolen. But part of the pioneer family survived the war. Joseph Pierce "Bud" Moore was born 16 September 1845 near Paris, Arkansas, during a brief move south. After serving in the Civil War, he prospected for gold in Yellowstone, Wyoming, and Montana, between 1865-1870. Then in the 1870s he was one of the first traveling representatives for the Singer Sewing Machine Company. He also farmed, and hauled White River rock from a quarry, to be used in the construction of Old Main, on the new University of Arkansas campus. At Mt. Comfort on 3 July 1892, Bud Moore married Nancy Ellen Lamons. She was born 12 May 1873 at Greenville, Tennessee, as were her parents, Isaac Newton and Clara Ellen (Wright) Lamons. (The parents moved to Arkansas in 1877, and both were buried at Westville, Oklahoma.) Bud and Nancy Ellen Moore had two girls, Lottie Lee born 15 July 1893, and Nan born 3 August 1895, on the Moore family farm. Later that same year, the mother Nancy died. Once more, the pioneer grandmother Matilda took on the job of raising small girls, although she was 82 and nearly blind. The girls attended the Deane School and later the Meadow Valley School, which stood where the U. A. Agri Park is now. In 3 November 1906, Matilda went to a well deserved rest, and hers was the last burial in the small cemetery on the farm. Then 13 year old Lottie and 11 year old Nan took over the job of running the home for their father. Their log home burned in 1910, and was replaced by the two story frame home which now stands, surrounded by tall trees. Their father never remarried, and died 25 March 1919. Nan Moore began teaching in 1914, but earned her degree from the University of Arkansas in 1947. Nan was a school teacher for 46 years, including 34 years at Tuscon, Ariwna. She retired in 1961 and lived on the home place with her sister until she died 24 January 1987. Robert Bennett Crouch was born 3 December 1892 at Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, and died 15 April 1969. His father, Isaac Breckenridge Crouch, from Bourbon County, Kentucky, brought the first registered saddle horses to Oklahoma in 1896. In 1913, Bennett Crouch of Vinita, Oklahoma, moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas, to train and show horses for Edward Orn (on the present Paul Martin farm). Bennett was a farmer and stockman, and one of the organizers of The Farm Bureau, where he was on the board of directors. He also served as a director of the Meadow Valley School. Obviously, the 8 December 1915 marriage of Bennett Crouch and Lottie Lee Moore was a good union, and their family helped them celebrate their Golden Anniversary in 1965. They spent all their married 'lives on the same farm, where their seven Crouch children were born: Mildred Lee born 28 July 1917 and died 26 February 1937; Joe Bennett born 30 May 1921, married Christine Allen and had Joe Bennett and Allen Oliver; Mary Carolyn born 12 November 1923, married Zara Lee Thomas and had Carolyn Lee, Michael, Joe, and Gerald Dale; Robert Henry born 31 December 1925, married Virginia Smith and had Robert W. and Marilyn Kay; Patricia Lucille born 29 May 1929, married H. Dean Browner and had Donna Jean, Nancy Ellen, and Janet Kay; Kathryn Nan born 12 August 1933 and died 30 October 1933; and Charlotte Sue born 20 March 1935 and died 28 October 1935. The three oldest surviving Crouch children still live here, their grandchildren comprising the seventh generation of the Moore family to live in Washington County. By: Patricia (Crouch) Browner