Personal experience and academic knowledge are related but not the same. They are distant cousins. One can have a vast academic and technical understanding of something, even being able to describe it in the most specific details without personally and experientially knowing what they are describing.

In October of 1735, the trustees for the establishment of the colony of Georgia appointed Francis Moore to be the keeper of the stores for the new fort and town that was to be established on the banks of the Mackay River. Both the fort and the town would be named Frederica. Moore would travel to Georgia with James Oglethorpe to this new town on what today is known as St. Simons Island. Moore would return to England a year later only to come again to Frederica in 1738 as recorder. He would live in Georgia until 1746, witnessing the siege of St. Augustine and the Spanish invasion of Georgia in 1742. Moore kept journals detailing the establishment of the fort and town, the people, flora and fauna, and events he witnessed. Some of his journals were published.