Jacob
Luther Moore
JACOB LUTHER MOORE is
claimed by the City of Muncie, judicial center and metropolis of Delaware
County, as one of its most alert and resourceful captains of industry. Here he is
president of The Moore Company and also of its subsidiary organization, The
Hager Company, and in these connections he functions as executive head of The
Moore Company, the largest exclusive manufacturing concern in the production of
bed springs in the entire United States, with an output that is third largest
production in this country.
Mr. Moore was born at
Bellevue, Huron County, Ohio, September 25, 1877, and is a son of William
Luther Moore and Mary (Steele) Moore, both of whom were born and reared in
Pennsylvania, where the respective families were founded in an early day.
William L. Moore received the advantages of the schools of the old Keystone
State and there he continued to reside until he moved to Ohio, where for a
number of years he was engaged in the hardware business at Marietta. The
closing period of his life was passed at Marietta, where he died in 1914, at
the age of sixty-eight years. He was affiliated with the I.O.O.F.
fraternity and was zealous member of the Presbyterian Church, as is also his
widow, who now resides at Fort Wayne, Indiana, she having celebrated in 1930
her seventy-fifth birthday anniversary, she having been born and reared in
Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. Jacob L., of this review, is the elder
of the two children, and his brother, Clinton G., has been his coadjutor in the
building up of the large business now controlled by The Moore Company, of which
the former is president and the latter vice-president. The president of
this important industrial corporation was named in honor of his paternal
grandfather, Jacob Luther Moore, who removed from his native State of
Pennsylvania and established residence near Bellevue, Huron County, Ohio, he
having been a specially skilled artisan at the trade of cabinetmaker, and many
fine specimens of his craftsmanship being still in existence. He died in
the late '80's, at the age of eighty-six years, and his remains rest in the
cemetery at Bellevue, Ohio. The original American representative of the
Moore family came from Germany and gained pioneer precedence in Pennsylvania,
and it is to be noted that the original German orthography of the name was
Mohr.
To the public schools
of Bellevue, Ohio, Jacob L. Moore of this review is indebted for his youthful
education, and after leaving school he found employment as messenger boy for
the Western Union Telegraph Company, at its office in Sandusky, Ohio, his
initial compensation having been eight dollars a month. He soon found
employment in the Sandusky hardware store of P.L. Van Alstine, in the capacity
of truck driver, and he was thus engaged about one year. He then went to
Marietta, Ohio, where his parents had established their home in the meantime,
and there he was employed about a year in the stove factory of A.T. Nye &
Son. There he next gave a similar period of service as day clerk in the
St. Cloud Hotel, and he then became associated with the Williamstown Flour
Milling company of Williamstown, Ohio, with which he served in turn as
bookkeeper and traveling salesman. He then became collector for Brown
Brothers Furniture Company, Cleveland, by which concern he was later given
charge of its shipping department. Mr. Moore made another advance step
when he became a traveling salesman for the Ohio Spring Bed Company, of Cleveland,
and he continued his service in this capacity six years. He then, in
January, 1907, initiated his independent career in the manufacturing of bed
springs. At Bellevue, Ohio, with a capital of only $900, he organized and
incorporated The J.L.Moore Manufacturing Company, and the business met with
favorable reception and steady expansion. In 1909 his brother, Clinton
G., joined the company, and their only assistant at the time was Ray A.
Shuster, of whom individual mention is made elsewhere in this publication.
In 1909 Mr. Moore
left the business at Bellevue in charge of his brother and Mr. Schuster and
went to Butler, Pennsylvania, where he remained five years as general
superintendent of the Pittsburgh-Hickson Company. In 1910 the manufacturing
plant of the Moore Company was removed from Bellevue, Ohio to Muncie, Indiana,
and the original title was changed to Moore Manufacturing Company, while later
the present title, The Moore Company, was adopted. The Muncie plant of
this important corporation is a building with a ground area 500 by 70 feet.
The aggregate, floor space utilized is 70,000 square feet, the mechanical
equipment of the establishment is of the highest modern grade, and the company
retains about 250 employees. July 1, 1919, as a subsidiary of The Moore
Company, was organized The Hager Company, which gives employment to more than
100 persons. In 1914 Jacob L. Moore went to Chicago as general manager of
the Art Bedstead Company, and after a year's service in this capacity he resumed
his active executive duties with The Moore Company and The Hager Company, of
each of which he is the president. The Moore Company now has precedence
as one of the largest in the Union in the manufacturing of bed spring,
inner-spring units for mattresses and springs for upholstered furniture.
The Moore Company is the country's largest exclusive manufacturers of bed
springs and is the third largest in production in this line of industry.
The trade of the concern is extended throughout the Untied States and to
Canada, Alaska and the Hawaiian Islands, the output being handled through
jobbers and large dealers in furniture.
At Bellevue, Ohio,
Mr. Moore still retains his affiliation with the Masonic Blue Lodge, and for a
number of years he was active in the affairs of the Benevolent and Protective
Order of Elks, in which he still holds membership. In the great western
metropolis he is a member of the Chicago Yacht Club and the Furniture Club of
America. His political allegiance is given to the Republican party, and
in their home City of Muncie he and his wife are zealous members of the First
Presbyterian Church.
In Cleveland, Ohio,
on the 21st of July, 1901, Mr. Moore was untied in marriage to Miss Minnie
Gertrude Barth a daughter of John George and Emma (Hess) Barth, the latter of
whom is deceased and the former of whom is now living retired in the Cleveland
suburb of Wickliffe, he having been formerly a leading exponent of the
real-estate business in Cleveland, and he having traveled abroad since retiring
from active business. Mrs. Moore was reared and educated in Cleveland and is a
talented musician, with a well cultivated soprano voice, on which score is
accentuated her popularity in the social and cultural circles of her home
community. Clinton Moore, was born at Bellevue, Ohio, November 21, 1906,
and was graduated in the Muncie High School as a member of the class of 1827,
he having thereafter attended the Culver Military Academy, at Culver, this
state, and being now actively associated with The Moore Company, of which his
father has been the executive head from the time the business was founded.
________________________
HURON COUNTY OHIO - BIOS: MOORE, Jacob Luther (published 1931)
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Contributed
to the HURON Co., OH Biographies Project with permission of the OH-FOOTSTEPS
Mailing list coordinator (Maggie
Stewart-Zimmerman<[email protected]>) and the submitter.
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File
contributed to OH-FOOTSTEPS Mailing List by:
Mrs.
Gina M. Reasoner
[email protected]
3 August 1999
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INDIANA
One Hundred and Fifty Years of American Development
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
Volume IV, page 91-92 with photo
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