Woman of the Century/Henrietta G. Moore

MOORE, Miss Henrietta G., Universalist minister and temperance worker, was born in Newark, Ohio. Her ancestry is mixed English, Irish HENRIETTA G. MOORE. and Scotch, and she inherits the best qualities of each of the mingled strains. Many of her ancestors were prominent persons in the three kingdoms. Reginald Moore, a nephew of Queen Elizabeth, was Secretary of State and Lord Chief Justice of England under her, and was by King James raised to the peerage and created Earl of Drogheda. His brother came to the colony of New York under a large land grant from Charles II, and, marrying the sister of Governor Nichols, established the family in America. Dr. Moore, first bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, Dr. Moore, president of the Columbia Theological Seminary, and President Moore, of Columbia College, are of the immediate descendants. Her mother's family was of the Murrays and the house of McCarter, of Scotland. Upon both sides were furnished revolutionary patriots, and all were conspicuous pioneer Baptists, Henrietta was a delicate child, but the outdoor life she led after her parents removed to Morrow, Ohio, on the Miami river, gave her strength and health. She was educated in both public and private schools, and when she was fifteen years old she began to teach school, family troubles in financial ways making self-support a necessity. She was a successful teacher. She early became interested in the temperance crusade movement. Her vigorous work in the crusade brought her at once to the front. She enforced the gospel plea in the work, but she stood also for the enforcement of the existing law, which was practically prohibitory. She aroused the enmity of those devoted to the liquor interest, and circumstances rendered it expedient that she should prosecute a leading and influential man for libelous charges in reference to the work. She was ably defended through a wearisome and long-drawn trial by leading lawyers, who, however, had no sympathy with any temperance move, but, with all the odds heavily against her, she triumphantly won her case. That experience proved a wonderful educator, bringing her by rapid steps to ground gained much more slowly by her coadjutors. She learned that law alone was powerless, that behind it must be an enforcing power, and thus she was a pioneer in recognition of and cooperation with the party pledged to the destruction of the liquor traffic. While still engaged in teaching, Miss Moore was made corresponding secretary of the Ohio Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and soon her services as national organizer were called for, and she gave up school work. She was one of the first women to brave the difficulties of travel in the Territories, enduring long and wearisome journeys on railroad lines, and going the second time beyond the Sierras. She has labored in every State and Territory with one exception. Her home is in Springfield, Ohio, and her mother is with her there. She was in youth trained under Presbyterian influences, but her faith is with the Universalist Church, in which she has held a minister's license for some years. On 4th June, 1891. she was regularly ordained to the ministry in that church, in the Ohio Universalist Convention in Columbus. She is still laboring earnestly in the ranks of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.