Presidential namesake was major Claremont benefactor

By SHARON WOOD
Special to the Eagle Times
CLAREMONT — William Henry Harrison Sr., the ninth president of the United States, left an unusual legacy in Claremont. A former military officer and politician, he died of pneumonia in April 1841, just over a month after his inauguration. That fact gives him the unfortunate distinction of having the shortest tenure in U.S. presidential history.

Obviously the man made an impression on Jonathan Moody, a shoemaker who had moved his family to Claremont from Unity in 1838. Whether he was a strong political supporter of the deceased president or had some other reason, in May 1842 Moody and his second wife Mary named their newborn son William Henry Harrison Moody.

By now the reader may have recognized the name of W. H. H. Moody as one that is quite well-known in this city. The family home, described by Otis Waite in his “History of Claremont” as being “on Elm Street, on Terrace Corner,” was where Jonathan Moody and his wife raised their large family and he ran his shoe shop. He had several employees, making shoes by hand, using handmade pegs as well, and is credited by Waite with putting shoes on the feet of half the people in town.

Young Harrison or Harry, as he was known, undoubtedly learned his father’s trade in that home-based shoe shop. According to Waite, he was 14 years old when he began to work as a clerk at Russell Farwell’s retail store, where products of Farwell’s shoe factory were sold. 

The Civil War brought major changes to Claremont and the whole country. Moody, at age 19, enlisted in the New England Cavalry but only served for six months, after which he was honorably discharged with disability. He then took a job as a traveling salesman for Tenney & Ballister, a large wholesaler in Manchester, with his territory covering the western states. 

Advancing from salesman to partner and realigning with various partners over the years, Moody established himself as a successful businessman. At one time he and two partners ran a shoe factory in Manchester, employing about 100 workers, making shoes for western and southern markets. In a few years, the business outgrew its space and relocated in Nashua. Some years later, Moody’s affiliations changed and a new company was formed in that city.

Waite’s description of this period in Moody’s life reads: “They built at Nashua a three-story brick factory large enough to accommodate from nine hundred to ten hundred hands, and to turn out eight thousand and five hundred pairs of men’s, boys’, and women’s shoes of various styles per day. This is the largest manufactory of its class of goods in this country. Its business amounts to about two million dollars annually.”

Waite acknowledged that Moody “has accumulated a handsome fortune.” He had also become a director of the Shoe and Leather Bank of Boston. Eventually the stress of his business obligations began to affect his health. Returning to his hometown of Claremont, Moody purchased the 87-acre former Mann Farm on the Charlestown Road, gradually buying adjoining farms and other lots to build a 600-acre estate extending to Maple Avenue.

Moody named his home, Highland View Farm, and it served for many years as his summer retreat. Rocks that were plentiful in the pastures and fields were used to build walls along the road and a grand stone arch over the entrance to the carriage drive, now known as Arch Road. He even built a race track near Maple Avenue, where he trained the horses that he raised and bred.

Waite wrote, “On this farm he has erected a large and elegant house, barns, and other buildings and appurtenances adapted to an extensive first-class horse-breeding establishment; and in 1893 had one hundred and fifty blooded horses of all kinds.” Waite credited Moody’s investments and improvements to his farm for adding to the “wealth, importance, and beauty of his native town, for which he has always had a strong affection.”

Moody’s strong affection for Claremont is evident from his investments and generous gifts. He purchased the Hotel Claremont, which, as the Hotel Moody, became one of New Hampshire’s leading establishments. 

In 1916 he and his wife Mary donated 175 acres of their land to the town to be used as a public park, which we know as Moody Park. The remainder of Highland View Farm was sold in 1921. A smaller house on Bailey Avenue, close enough to the hotel for Moody to walk there almost every day, became their new home.

Another major gift to the city was made in 1923. Twenty-five thousand dollars was donated for the building of ornamental concrete and iron gates for each of the four town cemeteries and Moody Park. For reasons unknown, not all of the planned gates were built. Of those that were, some have sustained damage over the years.

The gates at Mountain View Cemetery, damaged many years ago, were recently found and restored. There is a current fund-raising campaign to rebuild the pillars of those gates. If funding allows, the West Pleasant Street Cemetery pillars and gates will be restored as well. For information on the gate restoration project, please contact Norma Limoges at 603-504-0351.

While details of the life of President William Henry Harrison may not be well known throughout the country, the accomplishments of his namesake and the Moody family name are remembered in Claremont today.

 

Resources used for this article were Otis Waite’s History of Claremont, c1895; “Native son Moody gave plenty back to Claremont,” by Colin J. Sanborn, Claremont Historical Society, Eagle Times, June, 2008; and research done by Wayne McElreavy for his lecture on the life of W. H. H. Moody to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of Moody Park in 2016.