booth gardner - Washington Secretary of State

committee of the Seattle Community Fund. His suffragist spouse was a club woman and
deeply involved in the Catholic Diocese of Seattle.
In 1937, Spencer & Pollard’s boosterish History of the State of Washington, noted
Laurence Booth’s leadership of the Washington Title Insurance Co. It saluted “his active
connection with a business which has occupied his principal attention for almost half a
century. …By virtue of his many other interests in business and civic affairs (he) exercises
an important influence in the general life of this city. His standing among men similarly
engaged is indicated in the fact that he has been honored with the presidency of the
Washington Association of Title Men and is now the president of the American Association
of Title Men. He possesses an intimate knowledge of abstracts and property titles in King
County which is probably excelled by no other figure …”
* * *
Some sources, including Gov. Gardner’s maternal grandfather, the otherwise
fastidious Laurence S. Booth, list Robert Moore of Champoeg fame as Elizabeth Jane
Moore’s father. Professor Edmond S. Meany, a distinguished pioneer historian, says in two
places that Moore was her grandfather. It is well documented that Elizabeth Jane arrived
in Oregon in 1847 at the age of 10 as part of a wagon train that included James Marshall
Moore. She was listed in Census records as part of his household in Illinois. At least one
good source lists James as her father. There is no doubt that Booth Gardner is either the
great-great-great or great-great-grandson of the Champoeg pioneer. Adding credence to
Professor Meany’s account is the fact that Robert and Margaret Moore would have been in
their mid-50s when Elizabeth Jane was born. While not impossible, it’s highly unlikely that
they were her parents. We conclude she was their granddaughter and refer to her as such
here and in Chapter One.
Also for the record, Robert Moore was nothing if not stubborn. When the church
he attended at Oregon City switched from Presbyterian to Congregational, he organized
a Presbyterian Church “in his own house and employed a minister to preach to him each
Sunday.”
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