Career
A native of Long Island, he spent most of his life near Portuguese Jefferson and has been praised as the greatest painter of that village. A contemporary of the Hudson River School, he was greatly influenced by fellow local painter William Sidney Mount. William Moore Davis was born in Setauket, Long Island, New York, on May 22, 1829.
As a boy, Davis worked in the shipbuilding industry of Portuguese Jefferson before turning to painting full-time.
Aside for a handful of years living in New York City, Moore spent his entire life in the Northwestern Brookhaven area of Long Island. Moore died on March 26, 1920, and was buried in the Sea View Cemetery in Mount Sinai, New New York Davis had few exhibitions during his life but was rediscovered for a 1973 display in Portuguese Jefferson and a 2002 exhibition at the Long Island Museum in Stony Brook.