Revolutionary War Veteran

Revolutionary War Veteran. . Captain Zeally Moss is buried in the Bradley family circle, with his daughter Lydia Moss Bradley in the Mt. Prospect area at the southeast corner of the cemetery. He was born in Loudoun County, Virginia. on March 6, 1755, the son of Nathaniel and Nancy Cockrell Moss. He died of a fever in Peoria County, Illinois, on October 30, 1839, at 84 years of age while visiting his son, Captain William S. Moss. In 1776 he married Elizabeth (Martha, Marty) Berry and had two daughters (Elizabeth, Sarah). In the Spring of 1777 he was appointed Captain in the American Revolutionary forces under Quartermaster Claiborne, serving as Assistant Quartermaster. He was later appointed Wagon Master by Colonel William Washington, serving in that position until after the surrender of General Cornwallis at Yorktown on October 19, 1781, at which he was present. After discharge. he served one year as a Baptist minister. In 1783-84, he was engaged in building forts in Kentucky. On October 28, 1790, he married his second wife, Jennet (Jenny, Jane) Glasscock and had at least four surviving children (William, Nancy, McKaig and Lydia - the youngest born in 1816). Lydia Moss married Tobias S. Bradley on May 11, 1837, was an outstanding business woman and the benefactor of Bradley University. Lydia was an early member of the Peoria Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Around 1792 he moved his family to the newly formed State of Kentucky and in 1815 moved to the Vevay area of Switzerland County, Indiana, where he last sold land to Tobias Bradley on September 23, 1837. In 1834, at the age of 79, he received his Revolutionary War pension. Moss was honored in 1905 by the formation of the Zeally Moss Society of the Children of the American Revolution (C.A.R.), Peoria, IL. The regional chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution, which is named for Captain Zeally Moss, funded this plaque along with the Illinois Society of the SAR and the NSSAR George Washington Endowment Fund.