Moore, Rev. William Dudley, House
4 m. (6.4 km) S of Lawrenceburg, Lawrenceburg, KYThe Reverend William Dudley Moore House, located four miles south of Lawrenceburg in rural Anderson County, was the lifelong home of the county's most well-known and most-beloved minister. During his long career spanning half a century, Brother Moore, as he chose to be called, performed 928 marriages, 1400 funerals, and over 1,000 baptisms.
Architecturally, the Reverend Moore House is notable in being a frame "I" house-with-ell, unaltered since 1900. Along with the house is an amazingly intact complex of eleven outbuildings, all frame and all apparently of no later construction than 1900.
Dudley Moore was born on June 9, 1856, on a farm in rural Anderson County where he spent his entire life. He was the only son of Hamilton G. Moore and Lucy Ann Search Moore. Both of his parents were descendants of Revolutionary soldiers of Anderson County, his father being a grandson of Daniel Plough and his mother being a great-granddaughter of Richard Searcy. His father, who died in 1857, was a veteran of the Mexican War and saw action at Buena Vista.
The Moore farm was acquired by his grandmother, Sallie Morton Searcy, and his mother, Lucy Ann Searcy, in 1849 from the Thomas McCall heirs. The two-story frame "I" house was constructed ca. 1848-50, and it is uncertain whether it was built by the McCall or Searcy family.
Young Moore received his education at the one-room rural school close to his home and later at the Lawrenceburg Seminary. After completing of his studies at the Lawrenceburg Seminary, he attended Georgetown College in Kentucky.
In 1886, after several years of supply preaching, he made his decision to devot. his life to the ministry, and in May of the same year was ordained at the Salvisa Baptist Church in Anderson County. For the next forty-nine years, Brother Moore served as minister in several local Anderson, Jessamine, and Mercer County churches, including over thirty years at both old Goshen Church and Shawnee Run Church.
During his many years as a minister, Reverend Moore became a well-known figure to the citizens of Anderson County, officiating at countless baptisms, marriages, and funerals. Many a young couple were married in the parlor of his house which Brother Moore aptly called the "Marrying Room."
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.