About

The oldest officer in Marshall's army and one of General Lee's oldest colonels at the start of the war, Alfred Cleon Moore, the first to dwell in the Historic Locust Hill Manor, was a prominent Wythe County attorney and gentleman farmer, while his wife was a descendant of several wealthy Wythe County pioneer families. In March 1830 Alfred married Ann Frances "Nancy" Kent, daughter of pioneer landowner Joseph Kent of Wythe County, Virginia, and co-heir of the Kent lands, upon which Alfred and Nancy later built their "Locust Hill" home. Built in 1850 in the rolling hills of the New River Valley, it was one of Wythe County's larger farms. Kent's holdings included several large tracts of land. The main Kent homestead, "Kentlands," was located on Reed Creek and included some of the finest farmland in the county. As indicated by a date inscribed at the top of one of the chimneys, A.C Moore probably built the present house in 1850. Almost certainly there was no architect employed, and there is no known information about a building contractor. A local builder probably supervised the slave labor used to build the Moore house. The bricks came from the red clay found near the house, and the lumber from the surrounding woodland. The pattern of brick is an American bond of four courses of stretchers between courses of headers. As far as can be told, only hardwood was used in the house. The interior flooring is oak, while the door frames, window frames, and shouldered lintels are of yellow locust. When he died in 1890, Moore had lived 85 years. Still, he repeatedly answered his community’s call for leadership and served in many distinguished capacities during his long life. He was an early member of St. John's Episcopal Church in Wytheville, and much of his family was baptized, married, and memorialized there as late as the 1950's. He and his first wife, Ann Frances "Nancy" Kent, are buried side by side in the McGavock-Kent Cemetery near Ft. Chiswell, Virginia, next to their children Algernon and Ann "Izy" Elizabeth.