Hugh Moore – Tombstone Inscriptions

Moore, Hugh
Section 28.8
ID # 281104

Hugh Moore
Davidson Co.

Nineteen Penitentiary inmates died of Cholera during the June 1833 Epidemic in Nashville. They were buried at Nashville City Cemetery. In 2016 wooden markers were placed at the cemetery for these Cholera victims.

Fred Zahn of the Metropolitan Historical Commission was responsible for the carving of the inscriptions on the 19 wooden markers and locating where to place them at the Nashville City Cemetery. To read about his work on the project, click here.

To read the account of John Hill, a contemporary of these men and survivor of his time in the penitentiary, click here.

For more information, and to see a listing of the inmates’ names & counties of residence prior to incarceration, please see the following newspaper article in the Nashville Republican and State Gazette, Friday, July 5, 1833.

Charles A. Sherill has given permission to quote from Tennessee Convicts: Records of the State Penitentiary, Vol. I. 1831-1850, by Charles & Tomye M. Sherrill, published 1997:

Page 73
“Hugh Moore was received in the Penitentiary 16 September 1831. He is 6′ 2 1/2” high, weighs 161 lbs., but is now in bad health. His common weight is 220 lbs. Grey hair, blue eyes, fair skin, thin beard, a small mole on the chin, no scars perceivable. Born and raised in Spartanburg District, South Carolina, on Thickety[?] Creek, waters on Broad River, 10 miles from the court house and three miles from Pacolet Springs, where his family now lives, consisting of a wife, five sons and two daughters. Also a son, married and lives in the same [neighbourhood]. He is 58 years old. He has no trade, but is a farmer and has preached for 30 years, of the Baptist persuasion. Found guilty of forgery at the Circuit Court of the United States at Nashville for the district of West Tennessee and sentenced to five years imprisonment in the Jail and Penitentiary House of the State of Tennessee. Hugh Moore died of cholera on the 15th day of June, 1833. [Ledger 45, p. 97]”

Research Report August 2017


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