My Genealogy Hound

William K. Moir, foreman of the round-house of the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company at Chamois, Osage Co., Mo., is a native of Detroit, Mich., and was born in 1846. He is a son of William and Mary (Galloway) Moir, natives of Scotland, born respectively in 1799 and 1810. William Moir immigrated to the United States and settled in Detroit, Mich., before Michigan became a State; he was a machinist and millwright and steamboat engineer, and ran some of the first steamers on the great lakes; he died in Michigan in 1873. His ancestors were Norman French, who settled in Scotland in the early part of the thirteenth century. The mother of our subject emigrated from her native country to New York, where she first married an Englishman by the name of Moore, who died in New York, leaving one child. She then removed to Detroit, Mich., where she married Mr. Moir, and is still living. William K. Moir was educated in the public schools of Detroit, and when fifteen years of age entered the employ of S. D. Elwood’s Law Book Publishing House of Detroit, with whom he remained over three years, and the following two years was with W. E. Tunis & Co., general book business. He then became a fireman on the Detroit & Milwaukee Railroad, and at the end of one year assumed a like position on the Michigan Central Railroad. In 1870 he was promoted to the position of engineer on the latter road, in which capacity he worked until 1875; he subsequently worked one year on the Ohio & Mississippi Railroad in 1876, and one year on the Detroit, Lansing & Northern in 1877. The following four years he was employed as conductor on the Allegheny Valley Railroad, Pennsylvania, and in 1881 removed to Parsons, Kan., and accepted a position as engineer on the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad, being so employed three or four years. He later worked for the Wabash Railroad until March, 1886, when he took his present position at Chamois, Osage Co., Mo. In March, 1879, Mr. Moir married Susan E. Weir, daughter of John and Elizabeth (Wolf) Haggerty, of Oil City, Penn. Mrs. Moir has one daughter by a previous marriage, and her second marriage has been blessed with two sons and two daughters. Mr. Moir is a Prohibitionist in politics, and is an earnest and zealous temperance worker.