Mrs. Clara J. Moore, who has made for herself a most creditable position in the commercial circles of New Haven as the treasurer of the Clara J. Moore Corset Company, was born in Lenox, Massachusetts, December 6, 1868, and is a daughter of John R. and Elizabeth (Brockett) Hall. In the maternal line the ancestral history is one of close connection with New Haven. John Brockett, one of the founders of this city, was a son of Sir John Brockett, of Hertfordshire, England, and came to America in 1637 very much against the wishes of his father, who in consequence disowned him. However, fame came to him as one of the founders of New Haven and he has been honored by the public through successive generations, his name being placed on the tablet which has been erected to the founders of the city on the Green in New Haven. He was a scholarly man and a surveyor by profession. It was he who surveyed the Green, the beautiful park on which the main buildings of Yale University are located, while on the other sides of the park stand the library, the courthouse and other public buildings of the city. His descendants have been active factors in the later development and progress of New Haven and of other sections of the state, and the line is traced down to Mrs. Moore, who is now bearing an active part in promoting the commercial development of the city. Her father, John R. Hall, a son of Samuel Hall, became a resident of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and later engaged in farming. He is still active in business and now resides in Standish, Michigan, where he located at an early period in the development of that section. He still retains his farming interests and engages in his chosen vocation as a pastime while practically living retired. He is an expert on soils and on crop production and has for many years been considered one of Michigan’s most prominent agriculturists. He is now in his seventieth year. His wife was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, and was a daughter of Asahel D. and Clarissa (Goodrich) Brockett, the former a representative in the seventh generation of the direct descendants of Sir John Brockett. Nine children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Hall, of whom Mrs. Moore is the eldest, the others being Augusta E. Stone, John Henry Hall, Gilbert K. Hall, Walter Franklin Hall, Gatra May Hall, Asahel Elijah Hall, Clarence Edwin Hall and Arthur Cummings Hall.

     In her girlhood days Mrs. Moore attended Miss Ellen S. Bartlett’s school for girls, a private institution of learning on Wall street, and later became a student in Smith College, where she remained until her fourth year in that school. She afterward took up the profession of teaching, which, however, she abandoned to become the wife of George Frederick Moore in February, 1896. He was a son of Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Allen Moore, also of New Haven. The former was a prominent manufacturer who became one of the founders of the New Haven Clock Company. George F. Moore was born in New Haven, May 22, 1848, and became a well known locomotive engineer on the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad. He died December 24, 1913, and their only child, Jerome Hall, born in New Haven in 1897, died when but nine days old.

     It was the condition of her own health that led Mrs. Moore to study into the subject of producing a practical health brace and corset for women. For three years she was connected with Madame Du Pree and served a thorough apprenticeship, becoming an expert corsetiere. In 1909 she began the manufacture of the Clara Moore corset and health brace, starting in the business in a small way, but the value of her production became recognized throughout the country and today her name is a familiar one among all who utilize the high grade corset. She manufactures one of the best and most comfortably fitting corsets upon the market. The company was incorporated in 1909 for three thousand dollars and the capital was raised on the 8th of May, 1914, to fifty thousand dollars, and reorganized on February 15, 1917, with Thomas F. Reilly, a well known attorney of New Haven, as president; Philip H. Reilly as vice president; and Mrs. Moore as treasurer. Mrs. Moore has secured five separate and distinct patents on her inventions in connection with the manufacture of corsets and has several patents pending. She is a lady of marked business capability, possessing in notable measure initiative and executive power. She closely studies every feature of her business and every question relating thereto, and hard thinking always results in easier ways and the sure attainment of results. Her business now covers a wide territory, the output of the factory being distributed over all sections of the country, and is steadily growing.