Professor Ransom Asa Moore was an agronomist and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was born 1861 in Kewaunee County, Wisconsin and died in 1941 in Madison, Wisconsin. He has been called "Father of Wisconsin 4-H", the builder and "Daddy" of the Agriculture Short Course Program, and the Father of the Agronomy Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Agriculture.
Parents
From the early 1800s, the Moore family was known for moving on when the area in which they lived became too civilized, preferring as many farmers did, to live on the frontier. R. A. Moore's grandfather Seth Moore, a descendant of the original colonists (his father, Joseph, served under and was a bodyguard to General George Washington,) migrated to Ohio in 1826 and staked a claim on land that now lies near the center of the great city of Cleveland. It was here that he farmed and his nine children were born, including Ransom Moore's father, Seth Jr. The country was settled rapidly, which interfered with his trapping, so Seth sold his farm for the magnificent sum of $4600, which at that time was considered one of the best sales of farm lands that had occurred in that region. He then moved on to the newly formed Wisconsin territory in 1842.
Moore's father was Seth Moore, Jr. born April 10, 1835, in Avon, Ohio in Lorain County, Ohio. When Seth Jr. was around seven years of age, the Moore family moved to Wisconsin. According to the census, Seth Moore, Jr., like his father, was a farmer who liked to fish, hunt, and trap. Seth was a sailor on the rambler with Captain Wheeler, around 1855 he operated a saw mill, and between 1870 and 1900 his occupation was listed as a farmer. Seth Moore Jr. married Johanna Werner on October 19, 1858, in Cortville, Kewaunee, Wisconsin when she was 15 years of age. Johanna was born on March 15, 1843, in Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Germany and her family came to Chicago around 1850. Her parents, and possibly other siblings, died in 1854 during a cholera epidemic in Chicago when she was approximately 11 years of age. Her sister, Louisa K.S. Werner, a few years older than her, survived as well and later married Seth's brother, Joseph Moore, on October 5, 1858, a few weeks before Seth and Johanna were married. Seth and Johanna had settled around Kewaunee, Wisconsin and the Census showed they had 15–16 children, although many other credible sources, including Ransom's, state they had eleven children. In 1853, they purchased approximately 300 acres of land, including the Ojibwe village of Kewaunee.
Childhood
Moore was born June 5, 1861, as the second child of Seth and Johanna Moore, on an undeveloped farm near the locality known as the Foot-bridge community, west of Kewaunee, Wisconsin, near the present-day Bruemmer-Kewaunee County Park. As a youth, and being the eldest son, Ransom helped his father continue clearing the forest in order to develop their quarry, consequentially adding more farm land. Ransom spent time hunting, fishing, sugar bushing for maple syrup, and trapping, like his father and grandfather before him. To a great extent, the family's subsistence needs were filled by means of hunting, though they did grow crops and sold any surplus. During the winter months, Ransom trapped for furs and would hike approximately 32 miles to a Green Bay, Wisconsin trading post to sell them. There are amazing first-hand accounts written by Moore in the “Hoard's Dairyman” in the late 1920s, regarding his pioneer childhood. However, the majority of the Moore family income was derived from the lime-kiln and quarry.