Moody, John “Jack”
John Moody (d. early 1820s)
Fitzwilliam, NH
As a 45+ year old, free Black male residing in Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire, in 1820, John Moody was a registered voter. He lived in town with three children of color (1 male, 2 female) and two young women of color under age 45. John, also known as Jack, fathered two more children before he died in 1823.
Deed research provides details about Moody’s arrival in Fitzwilliam and from where. In March 1813, John Moody purchased 100 acres of land from Bradyll Smith located in Lot 7 of the 3rd Range. The deed indicates that Moody had moved to town from Rindge, NH. Four years later, in January 1817, Moody mortgaged the property to Abel Shedd Jr. for $200. He is recorded as yeoman, indicating that Moody was a small land-owning farmer in Fitzwilliam.
John Moody married Lydia Humphrey in 1815 in Shelburne, MA. They had the following children: Silas Moody (born c.1811), Elvira Moody (born c.1814), Lydia Moody (born c.1815), Sylvester Moody (born c.1820), and infant Moody (d.January 10, 1823)..
In March 1819, John Moody sold property in Fitzwilliam to Jonas Robeson for $350. He and his family remained at least one more year as they appear in the 1820 US Federal census as residents of Fitzwilliam. Also in 1820, the family had another son Sylvester. A fifth child was born around January 1823 and died in infancy. The death was recorded in the Fitzwilliam church records and named John’s wife as Rhoda, not Lydia.
“Jack Moody” died of lung fever in July of 1823, according to the Fitzwilliam church records. The minister in Fitzwilliam, Rev. John Sabin, took in Jack’s children Elvira Moody and later Silas Moody. Elvira remained single and a domestic servant in the Sabin household for much of her life. First Congregational Church records in Keene indicate that Jack’s other daughter Lydia Moody was baptized and taken in by Keene’s town minister, Rev. Zedekiah Barstow in 1824. The whereabouts of the fourth Moody child, Sylvester, at this time is still unknown.
John’s wife has been listed as both Lydia Humphrey and Rhoda. If her name was Rhoda, she may have moved to Rindge, NH. A woman of color named Rhoda Moody died in Rindge on July 2, 1846 at the age of 65 years, as outlined in the town records.
SOURCE MATERIALS
Cheshire County Registry of Deeds. Vol. 68: 367; Vol. 76: 302; Vol. 79: 527
First Congregational Church Records. Book II, p.105. Historical Society of Cheshire County, Group 276, Box 1.
Massachusetts Marriage Records, 1815- Ancestry.com
Early New Hampshire Town Records, Rindge, Vital Records, 1846- Familysearch.org
New Hampshire Church Records, Fitzwilliam, 1823- Familysearch.org
New Hampshire Wills and Probate, Fitzwilliam, 1819- Ancestry.com
U.S. Federal Census, 1820, 1830, 1840- Ancestry.com
Whittemore, B.B. History of the Town of Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire, 1752-1887, p.271- Archives.org
GENEALOGICAL SUMMARY
JOHN MOODY was most likely born in Massachusetts in the late 18th century. In 1815, he married LYDIA HUMPHREY in Shelburne, MA. They had: Elvira Moody (born c.1814), Lydia Moody (born c.1815), Silas Moody (born c.1817), and Sylvester Moody (born c.1820).