John Trotwood Moore

John Trotwood Moore (August 26, 1858 – May 10, 1929) was an American journalist, writer and local historian. He was the author of many poems, short stories and novels. He served as the State Librarian and Archivist of Tennessee from 1919 to 1929. He created Moore Academy in Pine Apple, Alabama in 1883. He was "an apologist for the Old South", and a proponent of lynching.

Early life

John Moore Jr., was born on August 26, 1858, in Marion, Alabama. He was of Scotch-Irish descent. His father, John Moore, was a lawyer and Confederate veteran. His mother was named Emily. He had a sister, who later married a professor at Vanderbilt University.

In 1878, Moore graduated with an A.B. degree from Howard College, now known as Samford University, where he studied the classics, and was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. While in college, he wrote The Howard College Magazine. Later, he read law with Hilary A. Herbert.

Career

Moore started his career as a journalist for The Marion Commonwealth, a newspaper in Marion, Alabama. He was a schoolteacher in Monterey, Butler County, Alabama, and a school principal in Pine Apple, Alabama, in the early 1880s.

Moore became a columnist for Clark's Horse Review in 1885. He took the penname of "Trotwood" after Betsey Trotwood, a character in Charles Dickens's David Copperfield. His column, called "Pacing Department", included short stories, poems and local histories. In 1897, Moore decided to publish a collection of his columns, entitled Songs and Stories from Tennessee. Four years later, in 1901, he published his first novel A Summer Hymnal. Over the years, Moore published several other novels.