By Beverly Belcher Woody
The Moir family of Patrick County traces its American roots to the ancient burgh of Forres, Elginshire, Scotland, where Alexander Moir and his wife, Margaret Forsyth, raised their family. From this Scottish home would come descendants who helped shape communities across Virginia and North Carolina. Like many Scots of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, members of the Moir family crossed the Atlantic in search of land, opportunity, and permanence, carrying with them a strong sense of kinship that endured even through war, migration, and division.
According to a comprehensive 547-page genealogy of the Moir family published in 1913 in Lowell, Massachusetts by Alexander L. Moir, Alexander Moir and Margaret Forsyth were the parents of at least four known children: Agnes Moir, who married Mr. Petrie; William Moir; John Moir, who married Mary Lyle; and Alexander Anderson Moir. Three of these children are known to have been born in Forres and to have emigrated to America early in the nineteenth century. While John Moir and Alexander Anderson Moir both settled in the American South—primarily Virginia and North Carolina—their descendants would branch widely.
Among the children of Alexander and Margaret Forsyth Moir, Alexander Anderson Moir (often referred to as A. A. Moir) stands at the center of the Patrick County story. A. A. first settled in the Rockingham County, North Carolina area, where he married Mary Holt Cogbill. According to The History of Patrick County, Virginia (pages 379–380), A. A. Moir and his family moved to Stuart before 1850. They lived on Main Street, near the site of Hudson’s Drug Store, and operated a store nearby.
Of A. A. and Mary Cogbill Moir, there came a full house of children, raised in the steady rhythms of mountain life and known well to kin and neighbors alike. Their eldest, James Cogbill Moir (1824–1883), carried his mother’s family name with pride. He was followed by Lucie Ann Elizabeth Moir (1826–1911), whose long life bridged generations. Alexander Thomas Moir (1828–1864) came next, then Dr. Robert Forsyth Moir (1829–1900), whose education set him apart in a time when physicians were few. Little Mary Susan Moir (1831–1833) was only lent to the family for a short while. John Wesley Moir (1833–1861) reached manhood before his days were cut short, while William Wallace Moir (1835–1925) lived to see the world change in ways his parents could scarcely have imagined. Margaret Bradley Moir (1838–1868) followed, and the youngest, Cybella Susan Moir, born in 1840, arrived at the close of a busy, child-filled household. Together, these sons and daughters formed the living legacy of Alexander Anderson and Mary Cogbill Moir, their lives stretching outward like branches from the same sturdy Patrick County tree.
In an early twentieth-century letter published in The Enterprise, an anonymous writer recalled what Stuart was like in the mid-1850s, noting:
“Alexander Moir lived where the Conner Drug Store now stands. He moved here from Leakesville, N.C., and sold goods under the name of A. A. Moir & Son, where the barber shop on Main Street now stands. He and his wife were cultured people.”
For the remainder of this article, we turn our attention to their son William Wallace Moir (W. W.) and his wife, Caroline “Callie” Virginia Martin, daughter of Thomas Samuel Martin and Ann Eliza Alexander. W. W., was appointed the postmaster for Meadows of Dan in 1860 and engaged in the dry goods business at the old John Shelor stand, and later at Elamsville, before moving to Patrick Courthouse. There, he served for a number of years as Deputy Clerk and also held the offices of Public Commissioner of Accounts and Bail Commissioner.
W. W. and Callie’s first child, Edwin Lucian Moir, was born on April 8, 1860, in Stuart. Edwin married Miss Mary Huldah Staples, daughter of Samuel Granville Staples and Caroline Harris DeJarnette of Stuart. Edwin and Mary raised four children together, with Mary’s death occurring during the birth of their fifth child. Edwin worked as an assistant postmaster before engaging in the warehouse grocery business. He later remarried and had two additional children.
W.W. and Callie’s second child, Harry Martin Moir, was born on November 9, 1861, in Stuart. Harry married Miss Blanche Irby Cheatham on June 7, 1894. Blanche was the granddaughter of Dr. Joseph Bishop of Stuart. Harry served for many years as county treasurer and was also a merchant in Stuart. He and Blanche raised three daughters and one son.
The third child, Virgil Pearson Moir, was born on February 29, 1864, in Stuart. Virgil married Miss Minnie McCrary of Chesterfield, Virginia, and together they had four children. Virgil was engaged in the wholesale grocery business, first in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, before moving to Washington, D.C.
Mary (May) Eliza Moir, the fourth child, was born on May 31, 1866. She married the attorney Powhatan Bouldin on June 19, 1889. May and Powhatan raised seven children in Stuart. Powhatan later became a judge, and in 1893 a Presbyterian Church was first organized in Patrick County. The original congregation of fourteen members met in a store building on Main Street in Stuart or in the basement of the Patrick County Courthouse, under the leadership of Judge Powhatan Bouldin, who served as its first Elder.
The fifth child, Thomas Alexander Moir, was born on May 19, 1868. Sadly, Thomas lived only seventeen years, passing away on December 26, 1885.
Twins Percie McPherson Moir and Jessie Moir were born on February 24, 1870. Percie graduated from V. P. I. and later received his law degree from Washington and Lee University. He practiced law in Roanoke from 1892 until 1898, when he joined Company D of the Second Virginia Volunteers. In 1901, he was appointed to civil service in the Philippine Islands, where he served as district attorney, district judge, and associate justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines until 1920. He resigned due to the ill health of his wife, Maude Kirkland Moir. Upon returning to Virginia, Judge Moir made his home in Stuart from 1920 until 1923, where he was a partner in the law firm of Thompson and Moir.
Jessie Moir married insurance agent James Jacob Norman, and together they raised a large family in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
William Wallace Moir, Jr., the eighth child, was born on August 5, 1872. He later moved to Roanoke, where he worked as an auto parts dealer. He never married.
The ninth child, Charles R. Moir, was born on October 14, 1874. Charles married Miss Susan Leath Penn, daughter of John Edmund Penn—Captain of the 42nd Virginia, state senator, and attorney—and his wife, Alice Grant Hoge. Charles was engaged in the auto parts business alongside his brother, William Wallace Moir, Jr.
As the years passed, the Moir family became so thoroughly woven into the life of Patrick County that their name appeared not only in records and deeds, but in courtrooms, churches, businesses, and the everyday memory of the town itself. From the dry goods counters of Main Street to the halls of justice at home and abroad, the descendants of Alexander Anderson and Mary Cogbill Moir carried forward the values of education, public service, and community leadership first planted generations earlier in Scotland and nurtured in the hills of southwest Virginia.
Yet even this account only begins to tell the story. In the next installment, we will look more closely at the Moirs of Stuart in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—their homes, their professions, and the enduring marks they left on Patrick County life—tracing how one family’s journey from Forres continued to shape the town they helped build.
Thank you so much to Carol Strickland, the great-granddaughter of W.W. and Callie Martin Moir for sharing her wonderful family photographs! For questions, comments, or story ideas, you may contact Woody at rockcastlecreek1@gmail.com or 276-692-9626.
