Nathaniel Fish Moore (1782–1872), attorney and educator, was born in Queens County, New York, and graduated from Columbia College (later Columbia University) in 1802. He then studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1805, and practiced in New York City until at least 1814. Moore became the adjunct professor of Greek and Latin at Columbia College in 1817, rising to full professor three years later and holding that position until 1835. He then spent two years traveling in Europe. Moore sold his library of approximately one thousand volumes of classics, philology, and theology to Columbia in 1838 and worked for a year as the school’s librarian before traveling abroad once more. In 1842 he was elected president of Columbia, serving until 1849 and remaining a trustee until 1851. During his retirement Moore took an active interest in photography. He died in the Highlands of the Hudson, New York (DAB description begins Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biography, 1928–36, 20 vols. description ends ; Benjamin I. Haight, A Memorial Discourse of Nathaniel F. Moore, LL.D. [1874]; Milton Halsey Thomas, Columbia University Officers and Alumni 1754–1857 [1936]; Albany Centinel, 9 Aug. 1805; Longworth’s New York Directory description begins Longworth’s American Almanac, New-York Register, and City Directory, New York, 1796–1842 (title varies; cited by year of publication) description ends [1806]: 267; [1814]: 195; Moore, An Historical Sketch of Columbia College, in the City of New-York [1846], 85, 99–100; New-York Times, 29 Apr. 1872).

TJ approved of using modern greek pronunciation for ancient Greek, with some exceptions, in his letter to John Adams of 21 Mar. 1819.