The junior member of the prominent law firm of Forney, Smith & Moore, of Moscow, is Frank Latham Moore, who was born in Olmstead County, Minnesota, February 8, 1863, and is of Scotch-Irish ancestry. The family was early founded in Canada, the great-grandfather of our subject being its progenitor there. The grandfather, Chauncy Moore, was born in Canada, and when a young man removed with his family to Rochester, New York, where Reuben Billings Moore, father of our subject, was born in 1826. The grandfather removed from Rochester to Putnam County, Illinois, where he secured land from the government and made his home until his death, in 1844, when he had reached the age of forty-three years. His wife was a cousin of Captain Johnson, who fought in the war of 1812, and is credited with having killed the Indian chief and warrior, Tecumseh. Her people were of German descent and were early settlers of the Mohawk valley.
In 1849 Reuben B. Moore crossed the plains to California with oxen, being the first to arrive at Sutter’s Fort that year. He mined on Feather River, but was principally engaged in constructing ditches and flumes to convey water to the miners. He met with a satisfactory degree of success during his ten years residence in California, and then returned to Illinois. Soon afterward he removed to Rochester, Minnesota, where he purchased a farm. In 1859 he married Miss Adele Buckland, a native of Cattaraugus County, New York, and to them were born four children.
Frank Latham Moore, their eldest child, was educated in the public schools of Rochester, Minnesota, was graduated in the high school with the class of 1879, ^”d was graduated in the law department of the Michigan State University, at Ann Arbor, in 1888. Soon afterward he came to the Pacific coast and practiced his profession for four years in Palouse City, Washington. In April 1893, he came to Moscow, and in November 1894, the present law firm of Forney, Smith & Moore was organized.
In March 1893, Mr. Moore married Miss Vina Deavitt, a native of Canada, and they now have two children, Gladys and Latham.