Matilda Moore 1836 – 1901

Local historian and researcher, Lee Ann Powers, provided this history on Matilda Moore who moved here with her husband and two children in 1878. A large white gravestone marks her final resting place in the old Globe Cemetery. 

Here is the story of Matilda Jane Burnett Crampton Moore.

She was born in Charleston, South Carolina on Aug. 10, 1836. Her parents died when she was a child. In 1851, when she was 15, and in company with her brother, she started with a party of emigrants on the long overland journey to California. Her brother died while they were crossing the plains of Texas, leaving her entirely alone.
In the same wagon train were the Oatman family, who, dissatisfied at the slow progress they were making, pushed on ahead, and were massacred by Indians between Maricopa Wells and Yuma.

After a journey of more than a year, the party reached San Bernardino, Calif., where she met and married John Crampton in 1852. They had four children. In 1860, John died. The following year she married James A. Moore. They had two children. In 1868, they left all the children except John under the care of a relative, and moved to Fort McDowell, Arizona territory, where James ran a sutler’s store [a civilian merchant who sells provisions to the army].

In 1870, after disposing of his business, they moved to Maricopa Wells, where James took charge of the overland stage line between Tucson and Yuma. Matilda went to California and put her children in school, returned to Maricopa Wells, and assumed the management of the station. The family moved to Globe in 1878. James engaged in mining, but his investments did poorly, and he lost his money. He died in 1883. In 1878, Matilda and her son John purchased the property where she lived until her death, erecting a frame building where they conducted the Central Hotel.

The building and contents were destroyed in the great fire of June 1892. Although left almost penniless, Matilda set to work to recoup the loss, which she was able to do partially by mortgaging her ground, and erected a lodging house. The income was sufficient in a few years to liquidate her indebtedness.

She was survived by her children by John Crampton, Mrs. M.E. Fitzgerald, Mrs. C.H. Kenyon and John F. Crampton (he of Globe); her children by James Moore, Mrs Susan A. Connell and J. Arthur Moore (he of Globe).
(Source: Arizona Silver Belt, Feb. 14, 1901, p. 1; Library of Congress)