Data source is the 1990 book, "Moomaw-Mumma-Mumaw-Mumaugh Genealogy" compiled by Robert Austin Moomaw (deceased).
Data source is Patricia Prickett Hickin. 300 Westminister-Canterbury Dr., #410, Winchester VA 22603-4278. E-mail pphgen@gmail.com
JOHN CROUSE MOOMAW
by Patricia Prickett Hickin
"One Man's Vision Largely Responsible for Roanoke," declared the Roanoke Times in its Anniversary Edition of November 30, 1926. The article told the story of a moonlight rendezvous on horseback in April 1881 -- near a bridge south of Buchanan -- that changed the course of the city's history. One young man rode out from Big Lick late on an April night, bound for a point just south of Buchanan; an older man met him at one o'clock in the morning near a bridge at Looney's Ferry, then rode on through the night and dawn to Lexington. The Revere-like rides differed markedly from the original: Paul Revere rode for separation, independence, and war; Charles W. Thomas and John C. Moomaw rode for connection, cooperation, and peace - and to beat out the competition.
The whole affair was the brainchild of John Crouse Moomaw of Cloverdale - aided by the energetic enthusiasm of the entrepreneurs of Big Lick. (In 1880 Big Lick was a bustling village of 670 souls, a way station on the rail line from Norfolk to Bristol, boasting just one real street, aptly named Commerce.) Moomaw was a long-bearded Dunkard preacher from Cloverdale well-known in Big Lick and Botetourt, deeply respected for his generosity to the unfortunate, his leadership in relief work in the post-Civil War South, his keen judgment in business and financial matters, and his outstanding success as an innovative commercial orchardist and fruit packer.
He was the eldest son of Benjamin Franklin Moomaw of Bonsack -- a prominent German Baptist farmer and evangelist who had actively opposed both slavery and secession before the war, and been instrumental in convincing both Virginia and Confederate authorities to refrain from drafting pacifist Dunkard and Mennonite farmers and tradespeople. Toward the end of the war, when the Confederate commander, suspicious of B.F.'s Unionist sympathies, stationed troops near his house, B.F. went into the camp and preached to the soldiers. When they fell ill from an epidemic of measles, he and John's mother visited the camp regularly to help take care of them and nurse them back to health.
His mother, Mary Ann Crouse, was the daughter of Catherine (Caty) Cline, first cousin of Elder John Kline of Rockingham County, the most eminent Dunkard leader in pre-Civil War Virginia. Until he was assassinated by Confederate sympathizers in the last year of the Civil War, Kline and B.F. Moomaw had been friends, communicating frequently, and working together to promote Dunkard precepts and ideals in Virginia and to keep ties between Northern and Southern Dunkards vital despite the stress of sectional conflict.
In 1859, at age 22, John married Virginia Catherine Graybill (daughter of Joseph Graybill and Mary Snider and granddaughter of Solomon Graybill and Katy Kline). Virginia died just two years later, not long after the birth of their second daughter in 1862. It was five years before Moomaw remarried.
Soon after his first marriage John purchased Cloverdale farm and entered the commercial fruit orchard business, "devoting his efforts to apples, peaches, grapes and pears."
Possessed of apparently boundless energy, Moomaw soon had a second orchard at Daleville, a third in Bedford County, and yet another in Surry County, across the river from Williamsburg and Jamestown. In 1867, at the time of his second marriage, to Honoria Elizabeth Bowman, at age 30, he established the first commercial cannery south of Baltimore. At first he bought the tin cans in Baltimore, but soon began manufacturing his own at Cloverdale, offering year-round employment to "a large number of employees." As the "pioneer . . . commercial fruit grower and canner of the South" and one of the first in the nation, he was soon canning not only fruit but corn, peas, and tomatoes.
But there was no efficient means of carrying supplies and products between Cloverdale and the rest of the world. Though all of Virginia had fallen in love with the "iron horse," (the steam locomotive meant that for the first time in human history people and goods could travel faster than a horse could carry them), there was as yet no train line through Cloverdale, a situation Moomaw was intent on changing.
In post-war Virginia, railroad companies were springing up right and left. A rail line up the Valley from Hagerstown, Maryland, to present-day Waynesboro, was virtually completed, and the directors were now planning an extension to connect the line with the Norfolk and Western line that entered the Valley in Roanoke County. At first they planned to terminate the road at Salem, and Moomaw in 1881, eager to see the road completed, became an adviser and right-of-way agent for the company. He had negotiated a number of rights of way through Botetourt County when engineering surveys revealed unexpected difficulties.
The directors began to have second thoughts. The entire Roanoke Valley feared they might elect to divert the road to Lynchburg, a far more difficult but much shorter route.
Hearing the bad news in regard to the Salem terminal, Moomaw immediately consulted with engineers to determine whether the grade between Cloverdale and Big Lick could be negotiated, meantime obtaining rights of way to that destination as well. When he learned that it could be, he immediately conferred with the leading citizens of Big Lick, who agreed to meet and -- if all went as planned -- to draw up a petition to the directors and pledge a subscription if they would select Big Lick as the southern terminal.
After giving instructions as to where and at what time he was to be informed of the outcome of the meeting and handed the petition, if one were drawn up, he left the citizens of the town to make the final decision, and withdrew to Buchanan to spend the evening, before riding on to a meeting of the directors in Lexington, which was to begin at 10 a.m. next day.
The meeting at Big Lick went as Moomaw hoped. The men attending drafted and signed a petition promising the directors a $10,000 subscription, a terminal at Big Lick, and rights of way through the farms of Botetourt and Roanoke County.
C.W. Thomas (later city treasurer) was asked to ride to Buchanan to deliver the news and the petition to Moomaw that very night at 1a.m. at the intersection of "a certain lane" with the "old turnpike near Buchanan." In later years, he recalled that when he handed the packet to Moomaw, the latter had said "in his quiet way, 'Mr. Thomas, I believe these papers will bring the Shenandoah Valley Railroad to Big Lick,' . . . [then turned] his horse's head toward Lexington" and rode through the night the 25 miles from Buchanan to Lexington to arrive in time for the directors' meeting next morning.
Though the $10,000 was a mere pittance for an enterprise expected to cost several millions, the enthusiasm, energy, and "progressive spirit" of the businessmen of Big Lick greatly impressed the directors. As C.W. Thomas put it in later years, "While our neighbors slept, we painted Big Lick red." The directors voted as Moomaw hoped they would.
It was obvious to all that Big Lick was not an appropriate name for the metropolis that would rise at the junction of the two railroads. In 1882 Big Lick obtained a new charter as the Town of Roanoke; the first train reached Roanoke from Hagerstown the same year. Two years afterwards Roanoke became a city.
John Crouse Moomaw was only 49 when he died two years later in August 1886 from "an attack of apoplexy." At the time of his death he was vice-president of the Roanoke and Southern railroad, which planned to build a line between Roanoke and Winston-Salem. He had recently bought a tract of land in Florida, intending to develop orange groves on it. His youngest child (of 12), a baby girl named for his wife, was just 7 weeks old.
The community was stunned: "We are all prostrated by this terrible blow," wrote his brother in an obituary for the Gospel Messenger, "which has deprived us of a friend and a brother whose virtues and magnificent gifts made him a tower of strength to the church and the . . . pride of his family . . . . 'He was a father to the poor, . . . eyes to the blind and feet to the lame; and the cause which he knew not, he searched out.' A few days before his sickness occurred, God gave him a clear presentiment of approaching dissolution, and he set his house in order. " "In the prime and vigor of life, . . . the solemn summons came and he entered his glorious reward."
His mother died a year later, at the age of 71; his father, in 1900 at eighty-six. All of his twelve children lived well into the next century. Five died under the age of 75, three lived into their mid-80s, and four into their 90s.
John Crouse Moomaw's great-grandparents, John Mumma/Moomaw and Anna Barbara Ranck, had come to Botetourt with their children from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in the 1780s. His grandfather, Christian Moomaw (m. Catherine Snider, 1800), was about twelve years old at the time. Both Rancks and Mummas are thought to be of French Huguenot ancestry.
Additional information on the family is on deposit at the Botetourt Historical Museum and the Virginia Room of the Roanoke Public Library.
SOURCES:
United States Census. 1850, 1870. Botetourt County, Virginia.
Anon., "Benjamin F. Moomaw," in Bruce, P.A. et al., History of Virginia. (6 vols., Chicago, New York, 1924).
Kline, Paul G., comp. Cline-Kline Family. Reprint and addendum by Floyd R. and Kathryn G. Mason. Salem, MA, 1997.
Mason, Floyd R. and Kathryn G. George Klein, Sr., Family Record. Bridgewater, VA, 1997.
McMillan, Lucille R. and Katie Westman, Nine Roads from Cloverdale . . . Pobst . . . Moomaw. Baltimore, 1988.
Moomaw, B.C. [Obituary: John C. Moomaw.] Gospel Messenger, Aug. 31, 1886, p. 540.
Moomaw, Robert, comp. Moomaw, Mumma, Mumaw, Mumaugh Genealogy. Houston, TX, 1990
Mumma, Doug. Mumma Family Database. Website: www.mumma.org. 2000.
Norris, Lois Graybill. Blue Ridges, Green Valleys, and Graybills. 1999.
Sappington, Roger E., comp. ed. The Brethren in the New Nation: A Sourcebook . . . 1785-1865. Elgin, IL, 1976.
Sappington, Roger E. The Brethren in Virginia. Harrisonburg, VA, 1973.
The Brethren Encyclopedia. 3 vols. Philadelphia, PA, 1983.
Thomas, C.W. "One Man's Vision Largely Responsible for Roanoke." The Roanoke Times, Nov. 30, 1926.
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From "The Brethren Encyclopedia", Vol 2, 1983, page 874. The Brethren Encyclopedia Inc, Elgin IL.
Moomaw, John Crouse (Church of the Brethren) 1837-86, businessman, church leader in Virginia. Moomaw was the oldest son of *B. F. and Mary Ann Crouse Moomaw. In 1860 John Moomaw married Catherine Graybill; they had two daughters. She died in 1862, and he married Elizabeth Bowman in 1867. They had six sons and four daughters. Moomaw was a farmer at Cloverdale, VA, who specialized in raising fruit and established the first commercial cannery south of Baltimore. He was also very active in supporting the building of Roanoke-area railroads. He was a leader of the Brethren, especially in *relief work in the South following the *Civil War. RES
New Nation (1976) 366, 401-2, 453-54; Virginia (1914) 139, 160; W. E. Thomas, "One Man's Vision Largely Responsible for Roanoke," Roanoke [VAJ Times (Nov. 30, 1926); GM (Aug. 31, 1886) 536, 540.
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http://www.ls.net/~newriver/vabio/bfmoomaw.htm
BENJAMIN F. MOOMAW. The first commercial fruit industry of Virginia was started in 1867, by the great pioneer of that business, John C. Moomaw. His was not only the first enterprise of the kind in Virginia, but one of the first in the United States. For over half a century the business has gone on and broadened under the management and direction of various members of the Moomaw family, one of whom is Benjamin F. Moomaw.
John C. Moomaw was born at Bonsacks, Virginia, in 1837, and died in 1886. He was a son of Benjamin F. and Mary (Crouse) Moomaw, the former born in the old family home at Daleville in Botetourt County. Mary Crouse was a native of Augusta County. While during his youth his educational opportunities were limited, John C. Moomaw had the sound mind and ambition for attainment that made possible the acquirement of a liberal education through reading and personal experience. He proved his courage and foresight by undertaking the growing and canning of fruit on a commercial scale when there were no other successful concerns as a precedent) and long before his death he saw the business established firmly. His home place was at Cloverdale. He was a large figure in the broader life and development of this section of the State. He assisted in securing the right of way for the Shenandoah Valley Railroad through Botetourt and other counties and had much to do with determining Big Lick (now Roanoke) as the southern terminal of the road. He also had much to do with the building of the Roanoke & Southern, and at the time of his death was vice president of this railroad. Both these lines served to promote the destiny of Roanoke as an important industrial city. The first engine to run over the Roanoke & Southern road bore his name under the cab window.
In spite of his heavy business responsibilities he found much time to devote to the cause of religion. For many years he was a minister of the Church of the Brethren or Dunkards, and also did much missionary work.
His first wife was Virginia Graybill, by whom he had two children, and after her death he married Honoria Elizabeth Bowman of Johnson City, Tennessee, who died June 11, 1900. By the second marriage there were six sons and four daughters. Two of the sons are Samuel .B. and Clarence W., who are partners in an extensive fruit export business, Clarence W. being located at New York City, and acting as shipper of American grown products, while his brother has charge of the selling in England and Continental Europe, where he has been located for fifteen years. Another son is Dr. W. C. Moomaw, a physician at Petersburg, Virginia. John C., Jr., is in the American consulor service at Montreal, Canada. J. I.. Moomaw was until his death in 1914 manager of John C. Moomaw Company, Incorporated.
John C. Moomaw at the time of his death owned a large estate of seven hundred acres at Cloverdale. Of these seven hundred acres, two hundred and fifty acres are now in orchard. It was after his death administered by his brother C. A. Moomaw, but in 1901 the property was incorporated as John C. Moomaw Company, with J. A. Jamison of Roanoke, as president, S. B. Moomaw, secretary, and J. L. Moomaw, manager. The products of this company, canned vegetables and fruits, were sold under the Cloverdale brand in a number of states.
Benjamin F. Moomaw, son of the late John C. Moomaw, was born at Cloverdale, attended local schools there, Daleville College, was a student at Juniata College, Huntington, Pennsylvania, for a time, and began work leading to a career as an electrical engineer at the University of Virginia. His plans for a career in this profession were abandoned. After leaving College he accepted a position with a wholesale grocery firm in Roanoke, and then became junior partner in the firm of J. A. Jamison & Company, merchandise brokers. Since 1902 he has been interested in the sale and distribution of orchard and cannery products throughout the middle Western and Southern States.
In 1903 he became president of the John C. Moomaw Company; serving in that capacity until 1914, and since then as its treasurer and general manager. Recently he effected the sale of the old home place at a consideration of over one hundred thousand dollars.
May 11, 1905, Mr. Moomaw married Miss Harriet Simmons, daughter of Judge and Mrs. W. B. Simmons of Fincastle, Virginia. They have four children, B. F., Jr., Sue Graybill, Harriett Simmons and Kathaline Kline.
Like his father Mr. Moomaw is a prominent leader in church affairs. He was a deacon of the Enon Baptist Church, and is chairman of the executive committee of the Valley Baptist Association, and a member of the Baptist State Mission Board. For eight years he was superintendent of the First Baptist Sunday school at Roanoke. He is a Master Mason, a member of the Rotary Club, the United Commercial Travelers, the Roanoke Chamber of Commerce.
His individual success and his activities as a horticulturist and fruit packer have brought him many responsibilities in a national way. He was the first president of the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation. He served for many years as a director of the Virginia Canning Association and of the National Canners Association. For two years he was president of the Virginia State Horticultural Society and one of the organizers and a director of the Federated Fruit .and Vegetable Growers, Incorporated.
After discontinuing the fruit and canning business Mr. Moomaw was appointed secretary of the Chamber of Comerce of Roanoke.