Elias Moore

Who was Elias Moore?

Elias Moore born into a Quaker family in New Jersey just after the American Revolution began, later became a member of the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada. He is notable for being one of the first Quakers to take an elected seat in Canada.

His family was traumatised "by the persecution Quakers suffered for their neutral stand during the American Revolution," and they soon moved to a Loyalist refugee camp in New York City. They then evacuated about 1784, to the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia where his father, Samuel, became a leader in the Quaker Community.

As a young adult, Moore returned to his home state of New Jersey, and his family followed later. His family had deep roots there, an ancestor, Samuel Moore having held many offices in the early colony of East Jersey right after it had been settled in the 1660s.

In 1811 James Brown, drove a team to take Moore, his wife and five children, from Elizabethtown, New Jersey, to the County of Norfolk, in Upper Canada. There were three other teams, and Brown reportedly led the van through the Grand River Swamp, the first team that ever went through after the brush was cleared away. The party reached Norfolk County in July.