Moody, Walter
Walter Moody (1861-1921)
Westmoreland, NH
In 1910, the Moody family rented a home on River Road in Westmoreland, NH. Walter Moody worked as a laborer, chopping wood, and his white partner Nettie kept house. Walter is recorded in the 1910 census as a mulatto male. Also living with them were Nettie’s three children: Clyde (Battis) Weston (21), Bethel (6) and Lloyd (1 ½) Weston.
Walter Moody was born in 1861 in Pittsfield, NH, to Charles and Mary R. (Haskell) Moody. His parents were from Loudon, NH, and Bow, NH, respectively. In Pittsfield, Walter attended school with his siblings Lydia, Cora, and Edwin while elder sister Hannah (a teenager) worked as a domestic servant locally. His father worked as a farm laborer. It’s possible that the children did not continue to attend school regularly. The 1880 census reveals that the entire Moody family of two parents and seven children were illiterate.
By 1880, the Moody family had moved to Northfield, NH. Walter worked as a farm laborer like his father and did some carpentry work as well. Within two years of the 1880 census, Walter Moody married a Black woman from Sutton, NH, Minnie A. Lyman. Their first daughter Lillia was born on September 7, 1882, in Belmont, NH. Their second child, born in 1885, died at birth. Their last child, Charles Everett Moody, was born in Belmont, NH, on October 20, 1886.
The Moody family relocated to Westminster, VT, sometime in the late 1880s-early 1890s. In October 1898, daughter Lilla May Moody died of typhoid fever. His wife may have died at this time as well. In the 1900 census, Walter Moody is listed as a widow living with Ida Thompson, a 45-year old Black woman, as well as Ida’s three children and two grandchildren.
Within a few years Walter Moody moved to Westmoreland, NH, and became romantically involved with a white married woman named Nettie (Emmons) Battis Weston. Shortly after they appeared in the 1910 census in Westmoreland, Walter and Nettie relocated to Concord. Nettie filed for a divorce and married Walter in August 1911.
Walter A. Moody died 28 Jun 1921 at the age of 60. He had spent 5.5 months in the NH State Hospital and died of "general paralysis of insane". He was buried in Westminster, VT in the Cold Spring Cemetery.
GENEALOGICAL SUMMARY
WALTER MOODY was born in 1861 in Pitsfield, NH, to Charles Moody (b.1828) and Mary (Haskall) Moody. Around 1881, he married MINNIE A. LYMAN (1860-c.1898) of Sutton, NH. They had: Lilla May (1882-1896), Baby (1885-1885), and Charles Everett (1886 - 1961). Walter Moody married 2nd in 1911 in Concord, NH, to NETTIE (EMMONS) BATTIS. He died on June 28, 1921 in Concord, NH and is buried in the Cold Spring Cemetery in Westminster, VT.
SOURCE MATERIALS
New Hampshire Vital Records, Births, 1862, 1886, 1907
New Hampshire Vital Records, Deaths, 1921
New Hampshire Vital Records, Marriages, 1868, 1904, 1911
U.S. Federal Census, 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920- Ancestry.com
Vermont Vital Records, Births, 1909
Vermont Vital Records, Deaths, 1898