William W. Moir

It was a peculiarly blameless and consecrated life that was closed by the death of William Wilmerding Moir at the age of forty-six [sic]. His earliest wish had been to enter the ministry of the Episcopal Church, but he deferred its accomplishment until, by a successful business career of fifteen years, he had earned the means and added to the training for the work to which for the remaining twelve years he was deeply devoted. For ten years he was an assistant at the Church of the Holy Communion in this city, where his complete absorption in the lives of his people made him greatly beloved. Then he resigned to accept the charge of the church at Lake Placid, in the Adirondacks, which was at that time a mission station of but feeble and intermittent vitality, with a half-built church and occasional services; but which he left, after scarcely two years, with a completed church edifice, a fully equipped parish house, the centre of the life of the village, erected largely at his own expense, and a mission chapel in an adjoining village as some of the evidences of the spirit with which he had imbued the people and the place. He was possessed of a sort of sublime optimism, which he imparted to every one who was associated with him, and the simplicity, the sincerity, and the earnestness of his life inspired others to live as he lived.

Edward Cary
1903 Century Association Yearbook