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C. H. Moore House
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| Location: | Clinton, DeWitt County, Illinois, USA |
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| NRHP Reference#: | 79003112 |
| Added to NRHP: | March 23, 1979[1] |
The C. H. Moore Homestead, in Clinton, Illinois, is one of two Registered Historic Places in DeWitt County. The other, the Magill House, was added to the Register in 2003.[1] The Moore House was added in 1979.
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Construction was started on the C. H. Moore Homestead by John and Minerva Moore Bishop. Mr. Bishop was a prosperous grain and lumber dealer in Clinton. Work on the C. H. Moore Homestead was completed in 1867 after the Civil War had ended and life took on a more normal pattern. Soon after this, the Bishops lost their only child. After Minerva Bishop's death in the early 1880s, Mr. Bishop sold the house to his brother-in-law, Clifton H. Moore.
Moore, an educated man, was the first attorney to commnce practice in Clinton, having hung out his shingle in 1841. He served as co-counsel with Abraham Lincoln on several cases heard in the DeWitt County circuit court, of which future United States Supreme Court justice David Davis was the presiding judge.
The west wing of the home was added in 1887 to house Mr. Moore's vast collection of books. At the time of his death, he owned approximately 7,000 volumes. The two-story high library has a vaulted ceiling and stenciled walls. There are four-season windows on the upper level, and an iron railing around the suspended upper gallery. The furniture and paintings include many of the original Moore furnishings. Moore's book collection was left to the city of Clinton upon his death and is now housed at the Vespasian Warner Public Library.
Moore lived in the house until his death in 1901. The house sat in disrepair for several decades until 1967 when it was purchased and restored by the newly formed DeWitt County Museum Association. The Apple 'N Pork festival, held annually the last full weekend in September, was first held in 1968 to help raise funds to restore and maintain the mansion.
The C. H. Moore Homestead is the centerpiece of the open air Dewitt County Museum, which includes the furnished mansion, a telephone exhibit in the barn, a farm museum with a collection of agriculture equipment, tools, buggies and sleighs, and a replica of the Indiana-style covered bridge.