In 1789, Revolutionary War veteran Pliny Moore settled Champlain after being awarded land by the State of New York. In 1801 he built a Federal-style frame house similar to the one standing today. Moore was the town's first judge and postmaster. During the War of 1812, as the border became a revolving door for American and British armies and militias, his house played a key role in military events, and he actively communicated with commanders on both sides of the conflict. In November 1812, American general Henry Dearborn used Moore's house as his headquarters while his army camped nearby on the way to Lacolle, Quebec. A few months later, Moore wrote that in the autumn his house was "like a large hotel" because all the principal officers of the army were in it. In October 1813, British Major J. Perreault threatened Moore and the village inhabitants after an attack at the border, and his troops later pillaged the village. In the spring of 1814, prisoner-of-war negotiations took place there and at Elias Dewey's house, Dewey's Tavern. In June 1814, Colonel Benjamin Forsyth was killed on the road to Lacolle, Quebec, now New York Route 276. Two months later, his death was avenged by the ambush of British Captain St. Valier Mailloux, who had commanded the militia and Indians who killed Forsyth, and Mailloux died in the basement of Moore's house.