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History > Families > Early "Doers" > Thomas Moore

Thomas Moore

This silhouette is the only known likeness of Thomas Moore (1760-1822), inventor, engineer, and intimate friend of President Jefferson. Married to Mary Brooke, Moore built Longwood and invented the refrigerator, in a patent signed by Jefferson and Secretary of State Madison. Jefferson named Moore to lay out the National Road from Cumberland to Ohio. He engineered the Erie Canal, the state road from Buffalo to Albany, the Aqueduct Bridge over the Potomac, and the James River & Kanawha Canal. With brothers-in-law Isaac Briggs and Caleb Bentley he laid out the mill town Triadelphia. Perhaps his greatest exploits were in agriculture. Working with Briggs and often with Jefferson, he developed new plowing and fertilizing techniques and created the National Agricultural Society--James Madison president--for national and international exchange of farming innovations.