Moore was elected a member of the California Academy of Sciences in 1875 and was the vice-president in 1880–1883 and again in 1886, although he resigned in October 1886.
[1] Moore had broad interests in natural history but his major focus was fungi.
He co-authored the important early work Catalogue of the Pacific Coast Fungi with H. W. Harkness in 1880 (published by the California Academy of Sciences).
[4] Moore resigned from the academy in 1889 and for 20 years from the late 1890s was librarian and assistant secretary of the Fire Underwriters Association of the Pacific.
He was probably trained as a minister and sent to Benicia in California in October 1865 by the Congregational Home Missionary Society.