Obituary of William Moffett
Transcribed from photocopy of the original as preserved in a scrapbook by William’s daughter, Miss Mary Jane Moffett
Undated
(Communicated)
Once more death has come into our midst and claimed another of our old and esteemed citizens, Capt. William Moffett, who passed from the sorrows of earth September 21st, in his sixty-first year.
How fast the old pioneers are passing away - - a few more years and the grass will grow green over the last of their graves. Only one here and there linger upon the shores of time.
Capt. Moffett was born in Washington county, Virginia, in 1799. His early life was passed amid scenes picturesque and sublime. Environed upon every side by lofty mountain ranges; he was accustomed to look upon nature in her wildest forms. Stretching away to the eastward were the rugged slopes of the Alleghanies, while upon the west loomed up the misty craigs of the Blue Ridge. Between these time monuments of national sublimity he grew to full manhood and received his earliest impressions.
In 1821 Capt. Moffett was married to Miss Issabella Reed, with whom he lived for more than thirty-seven years. Two years later he bid adieu to the land of his fathers to seek a home in the far West. – Late in the fall of the same year he reached his destination, where for the first time, with his little group around him, pitched his tent in the solitudes of the wilderness. No sound there broke the silence of nature but the scream of the beast, the cry of the savage, or the low murmuring of the winds as they rustled through the dark foliage. No splendid mansions filled with velvet cushions and shining in the midst of golden harvest fields, were there to greet the eye of the wanderer, but all was one untrodden wild. We may truly say of Capt. Moffett that with the axe of the woodman and the industry of the pioneer, he literally cut his way through the world, and left a lasting signet upon the face of nature.
Thirty-six years have passed away since Capt. Moffett landed upon the banks of Flatrock; and now he rests from his toils beneath the clods of the valley to await the morning of the resurrection. For more than twenty-six years he lived a consistent member of the Baptist Church, and after seeing the land of his adoption blossom as the garden of the Lord, passed away in the triumphs of the Christian religion, and though his mortality sleeps in the cold and silent grave, his emancipated spirit is gone to the bosom of its God
The demise of Capt. Moffett ought to have been noticed before, and had we been at home it should have been done. We were proud to number him among our oldest and most valued friends, as he was always numbered among the salt of the earth in this county.
Gold bless those kind hearted people who settled as pioneers in Rush County.