John M. Moore is one of the widely known citizens of Noble County, spent many years of his life as a practical farmer, but for the last twenty years has been in the sawmill and lumber business at Cromwell, and is now head of the M. Moore & Company, dealers in lumber and building material and coal.
Mr. Moore was born three miles southwest of Cromwell in Sparta Township, November 25, 1856, son of Joseph and Mary (Airgood) Moore. His father, a native of New Jersey, came West to Noble County, Indiana, at the age of sixteen, grew up and married here, and then settled in section 19 of Sparta Township. Later he acquired a farm of 162 acres in Turkey Creek Township of Kosciusko County, and lived thre until the death of his wife. He afterward married a second time, and spent his last years at Cromwell. By his first wife he was the father of nine children, two of whom died young. Those still living include: Emeline, widow of John S. Shock; Maria, wife of Allen Wright, of Syracuse, Indiana; Almina, wife of Charles Lowner, of Colorado; and Minnie, wife of William Grider, of Sparta Township.
John M. Moore attended the schools near his father's home and had the usual training and experience of an Indiana farm boy. He sought no particular interest or enterprise outside of farming until 1898, when he left the country and moved to Cromwell. Here he established and conducted a lumber yard and sawmill, and continued it as an individual business under his own name until January, 1914, when he associated his son-in-law with him. They carry a large stock and have taken pains to be in a position to supply every demand for building material and similar commodities required by their community.
Mr. Moore married Nettie Snyder. He had the misfortune to lose his wife in August, 1914. She was the mother of five children: Elvin C., a business mn of Hartford City, Indianas; Ethel, wife of Calvin Seymour; Freeman C., who lives on the old farm; Hazel and Mabel, twins, the former the wife of Roy Eaton, and the latter the wife of Forest Heney, of Avilla, Indiana. On January 30, 1919, Mr. Moore married Minnie Bentz, of Turkey Creek Township, Kosciusko County. He is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity, the Knights of Pythias and Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and is a past grand and past chancellor of the Knights of Pythias. Politically, he is a republican. Besides his chief business Mr. Moore is a stockholder in the Sparta State Bank.
John M. Moore, History of Northeast Indiana, (c) 1884, Vol. 2, pg. 22-23