Born: 1808 in Keene, New York, the first child of Jacob S. and Sally B. Moody, the first settlers of Saranac Lake.
Died: 1890
Married: Adelaide Hall (sometimes called Sally, died c. 1861); Elizabeth Still Dudley
Children: Simeon Jacob Moody, Phineas Moody, Polly Moody, William Moody, Alonzo W. Moody, Fayette M. Moody, Richard; Robert Benjamin Moody
Harvey Moody was married twice. With his first wife, he had seven children. His second wife, a widow, had five children at the time of their marriage; she had one child, Robert, with Harvey.
Source: Mary MacKenzie, The Plains of Abraham: A History of North Elba & Lake Placid, Lee Manchester, ed., Utica, NY: Nicholas K. Burns Publishing, 2007, pp. 84 - 94. Full text here
Malone Farmer, March 5, 1919
Mart Moody and his brothers, pioneers of the Saranac region, were guides of the old-fashioned sort in the days before the railroad was built and there were few roads of any kind. Powerful in physique, keen, alert, resourceful, they were skilled in all the crafts of woods and waters. In addition to these faculties, Mart and his older brother, Harvey, were highly entertaining raconteurs, storytellers if you like, although Harvey probably knew more of the Indian and other lore of the region, in addition to a vast store of his personal adventures, which, of course, never lost anything in the telling. It is a pity that the tales and reminiscences of these two have not been preserved; they could have furnished material for one thousand and one long Adirondack nights and interested generations yet to come.
Happily, one chronicler has left the story of a trip taken by a hunting party in 1860 with Harvey Moody as head guide, and accompanied by his brothers, Cortez and Martin, and Phineas and William, his sons. The party started from Lower Saranac and went through to Indian Carry on the Upper Saranac or the Indian Carrying Place as it was then called. At that time Corey's log cabin stood in a little clearing at the carry and behind it on the gentle slope was a patch of rye and buckwheat spotted with charred stumps; a rough zigzag track led up the slope and was lost in the close woods of the background. [Jesse] Corey acted as camp master, with his boy, Jess, then a lad of 16, to help him, and pitched two tents on the shore of the lake. Around a crackling: fire of piled logs four men were busy cooking. Corey, short but muscular, in a red hunting shirt, watched the roasting of a haunch of venison; Cort Moody, tall and lank, in a shirt of blue, was frying trout in a bob-handled sauce-pan, and Phin in a coarse blue check, was toasting on forked sticks, a brace of partridges spread out like fans. For the fourth man we have a rapid sketch of Harvey Moody, a man about 50, of brawny shape, bronzed skin, an air ever on the alert, and eyes that, gazing at any object, protruded in keen glances. He wore purple shirt, with pantaloons and both of an earthen tint, and a wood knife sheathed in a belt of deerskin. His actions corresponded with the quickness of his looks. He tried a pair of ducks, roasting on sticks like the partridges; then stirred a layer of frying trout; then hurried to a large Indian cake, arching and darkening into a rich brown; next turned a tawny wheat pancake, then stood a moment with arms akimbi, [sic] glancing around the forest and over the lake.
As a hunter, guide and trapper, Harvey Moody had few peers. He knew the whole Saranac region thoroughly and the habits of its animals, birds and fishes. He was resourceful in his vocations and as a guide was always ready, handling rifle, rod and oar with equal skill and teaching his woodcraft to those he guided, with a cheerful patience. His senses were wonderfully acute and continually alive. No sight or sound of woods or waters escaped him. Hunting, trapping, fishing, he laid the whole forest under tribute. In the swamps were his wolf traps; through miles of woods he blazed sable lines; on water edges he built mink deadfalls; through all the woods he started his hound after deer, and he knew where to fish the lakes and the mouths, eddies and rapids of streams. In addition to all of these qualities, Harvey, was an indefatigable story-teller and his yarns on a single hunting trip would fill a fair-sized book. After his death Mart took his place and there may be men with memories long enough to pass judgment on which was the better of the two.
