1889 WALLACE GUIDE
CAMP REDSIDE, a charming Sylvan Retreat recently established by the veteran Woodsman and Hotel-keeper, "Uncle Mart. Moody," on the shore of Big Tupper Lake, consists of a series of rustic lodges which perfectly represent primitive wilderness life. The location is about one-third mile above the Mt. Morris House (formerly kept by him) and near the pretty Redside Brook which goes cascading into the lake. The Camps are conveniently furnished. The beds have the best twisted wire springs. The table is supplied with the best the market affords. Daily meals and Post Office at the camp address, Mart Moody, Moody, Franklin Co.
1892 MAR 11 Malone Gazette
Mr. S. J. Moody, of Tupper’s Lake, has been visiting old friends in town (Malone) the past week. Mr. Moody is one of the pioneers of that region, and has spent many years in his isolated settlement, going about 60 miles "around the road" to vote, but now he finds himself in what promises to be one of the centers of Adirondack civilization, near the juncture of the Northern Adirondack & St. Lawrence railroad lines, with between two and three hundred acres of good land. He does not verify the stories of cruelty to Italian laborers, and says much of their suffering is due to their own improvidence, and neglect to properly clothe and feed themselves. (Plattsburg Republican)
1897 JUN 10 Elizabethtown Post
It is a lamentable fact that the grave of Jacob Moody at Saranac Lake cemetery is unmarked by a headstone. Jacob Moody was the original settler of that section and did brave and valiant service a volunteer soldier in the militia at the Battle of Plattsburg, Sept. 11, 1814. Such services entitles him to a headstone.
1902 FEB 12 Malone Farmer
Page Bros., of Tupper Lake, have issued a calendar unique in design which attracts more than passing notice. At the top of the card is a fine half-tone picture of two Adirondack pioneers. Mart Moody and Jimmie Wilson, and the fact that they are well known throughout the woods and the country, has brought the calendar in great demand.
1903 MAY 10, New York Times
Uncle Mart" Moody BY KENNETH GOLDTHWAITE
There resides at Big Tupper Lake, in the Adirondacks, a tall, angular, old gentleman by the name of Martin Van Buren Moody, whom the sportsmen and woodsmen since the days when Chester A. Arthur first went into the mountains to fish and hunt have delighted to honor as "Uncle Mart." Moody, who made his way through the wilderness from Saranac Lake, was one of the pioneers at Big Tupper. President Arthur, who found him to be a particularly interesting character, gave permanency to his work there by establishing a Post Office and calling it Moody's, while the local geographers have named an impetuous mountain stream Moody's Brook. "Uncle Mart's" house, in the corner of which is located the Post Office, is on the eastern shore of the lake. His front door yard is an arm of Big Tupper, where he catches salmon trout, while in the rear is a garden plot which spreads from the little ravine up and over the hill top, where its margins are defined by the forest. He raises vegetables and sells them to the Summer campers, and those who find him at work with his hoe in the Spring will note a characteristic feature in his attire in the manner in which he tucks the bottom of his trousers legs into the tops of his heavy, gray woolen socks.
"How true the Scriptures be!" he exclaimed one morning as he pounded the back of his hoe against an unoffending cobble. "They say that a man shall get his living by the sweat of his brow. Now in that there garden two weeds come up to the sprout from a single seed.”
"If you could only come out here early in the morning," he continued, " and lay down alongside one of those rows of potatoes, when they begun to blow out, you’d hear them say ' Lay 'long.' ' Lay long' -- for you see there ain't room enough for 'em to grow in," and he swung his hoe handle around to direct attention to his great economy of space within the plot for the possession of which he has been fighting against Mother Nature and the forest for a generation.
"I tried to raise cucumbers." he said, "but the vines grew so fast that they wore the cucumbers out draggin' 'em over the stones."
"Bin in the Post Office?" he inquired. "I used to be Arthur's guide and he appointed me Postmaster, an' I've bin ever since. Funny thing, too, 'bout it was that it run 'long for seventeen years before any Government official came to see the office. Finally a man in Washington thought he wanted to see what the North Woods was like, and bein’ a Post Office Inspector, he concluded that it was a good time to come up to Moody's. When he got here, I turned everything over to him and went on with my gardening. He got through the business of ‘bout ‘leven years and then took a rest. The fishin’ happened to be purty good. When he finally through he said the United States Government owed me just 16 cents. Somehow or other I put in a little too much of my own money sometime in makin' change and never missed it."
Among the things most highly prized in the Moody home is the old resistor of "The Mount Morris House," which Moody built and conducted for many years. In his story of "The Jumping Frog " Mark Twain portrays a character whom he calls Simon Wheeler, and it is Wheeler who relates the adventures of Jim Smiley, who was said to have been the “curiousest man about always betting on anything that turned up you ever see." It has been said that Simon Wheeler was none other than "Uncle Mart". Moody, and although this may be true, for Moody's imagination is capable of almost any yarn, the register does not show the signature of the humorist, although there are the signatures of Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Horatio Seymour, and hundreds of others who came to the mountains to hunt and fish. One of the visitors was Leicester Holme of 33 East Fifty-seventh Street, New York, who wrote:
"Seven-pound trout caught In Tupper Lake in front of the house. Second trout of the season; witness, Mart Moody, the man whose character in reference to a fishing or hunting story more closely resembles that of George Washington than any man alive. Fred Moody can also swear to this, but there is no necessity for this certificate after Uncle Mart has said it."
The people who had been attracted to the Adirondacks by the tales of the Rev. W. H. H. Murray came in such numbers in about 1869 that they could not be accommodated comfortably in the small hunting retreats and inns which up to that time had met the requirements of the few sportsmen. At this time Moody had a log house containing four small rooms. About the middle of the afternoon, one day thirty-nine people appeared as if they had dropped from the clouds and made application for the four little rooms. They had journeyed many miles from the ports of entry on Lake Champlain, were tired, hungry, and helpless.
"In the midst of all this confusion," says Moody. "I saw Arthur and a man named William A. Fullerton of New York, comin’ up the lake in a row boat. Arthur had been here before, but I'd never seen Fullerton. They pulled their boat out of the water and Arthur, satchel in hand, started toward the house. When he saw me he called out:
“ ‘Hello.. “Uncle Mart”, Keepin' hotel?’
"I told him what the trouble was and he said: ' I'll fix 'em.'
"The floors of the house were made of wide pine boards. There were people sittin’ ‘round on the floor because we hadn't chairs enough for ‘em, and they took up about all the space there was. Arthur saw one of those wide boards and says:
“ ‘Is this board spoken for to-night? '
" ‘No, guess not,’ said I.
“ 'Then I'll take it,' he said, and he stretched himself out on one board, while Fullerton dropped on to another. Then you’d ought to’ve seen them other folks scramble for boards. It was like stakin’ out a claim. Once they squatted they wouldn't move.
"Well, Minervie ‘n I put up eight tents, usin’ sheets and bedspreads and everything we could. Fixed 'em up in sort of a half circle; started a big fire in front: made bunks for the women to sleep on and threw straw on the ground for the men. Then we hunted up Arthur. I rigged up a bed out of my spruce poles and rope, and Arthur and Fullerton slept on it for sixteen days. Arthur said it was the best bed he ever had and wouldn't take none other.
"Arthur killed a buck on Symonds's Pond that time, and it was one of the purtiest I ever saw. A few days later I had Arthur and Fullerton in a boat and Arthur said he wanted to kill a deer with a revolver, a six-shooter that he carried. We waited for some time before the dogs put a deer into the water, and then after some hard rowin’ I got the boat in position for a good shot. The deer was swimmin’ an’ Arthur shot an’ shot, an’ shot until he used up all the charges without hitting the deer.
"‘You're .no marksman,’ says I. ‘I c’u’d killed him at the first shot.’
"‘Bet you $5 you can’t’ said Arthur, a little riled.
"‘I'll take your bet,’ says I. Then I took the pistol, placed it on the seat, and rowed up to the deer. Then I grabbed the deer, by the ear, shoved the pistol down inside its ear, and fired. 'Twas the only way to do with a little twenty-two,
“‘Hold on,’ says Arthur. ‘Tain't fair,’ but he paid just the same."
Grover Cleveland had a cottage at Saranac Inn, on the Upper Saranac Lake, for several years, and soon after his nomination for the Presidency the second time he visited Tupper Lake, stopping with Moody. He was accompanied by Mrs. Cleveland, Mrs. Folsom, Mr. and Mrs. Daniel S. Lamont, and Samuel J. Ward.
"They arrived when I was out in the garden," said Moody. "and the first I saw of them was when I came down to open the mail. Cleveland was sitting just outside the door, and as I walked through from the rear, Ward, who didn't know that Cleveland and I were acquainted, sprang to his feet and came toward me. But, Cleveland was the quickest. He grabbed me by the hand and swung round, saying: ' There, Ward, I got there first.'
"Cleveland wanted to kill a deer, and hunted with Ward and Lamont at the foot of Big Tupper Lake and also at Wolf Pond, Cleveland got two deer finally and prepared to take the largest home. Somehow or other they got into a dispute over how much it weighed. Lamont claimed 200, Cleveland called it 300, and Ward wanted to leave it to me. I told them to cut the deer up in quarters. Then I got a rope and threw it over a limb of a tree and fixed up a sort of a scale. I piled deer meat on one side and stones on the other until they balanced.
"'Two hundred and ninety-seven pounds,’ says I.
“The rest of them looked kind o’ sheepish and seemed inclined to doubt it.
"‘Why, how can you tell how much he weighs?' demanded Cleveland.
"’Guessed the weight of the stones,' I replied."
“During his "second term as President, Cleveland again visited Big Tupper. Lamont came with him. There were a few wolves left in the woods and Cleveland wanted to kill one. I took them over to Wolf Pond and we tramped around for several hours, each taking a different course, but without seein' or hearin' any wolves. It got to be a purty tiresome hunt. Suddenly, I came upon Cleveland sitin' on a log.
"' Well, Grover, how ye enjoyin’ yourself? ' says I.
"' Enjoyin' myself!' he shouted, and he got up and danced a few steps along the log. ' You bet I am, for while I'm here there ain't a hundred pencils goin' every minute to take down everything I say.'
"I joined the Methodist Church seven years ago." says Moody, "and since that time I have been tellin' only the truth. There was a time when I could tell just as big a story as the other fellow, but I ain't as spry as I was once. My imagination ain't what it was once, neither."
"In the way of hunting stories, for instance?'' suggested the writer.
"Speakin’’bout catamounts," said he, "one time I discovered the tracks of a catamount near Bog River Falls and followed them back into the woods for a long distance. I was carryin' a double-barreled, muzzle-loadin' shotgun, a purty old gun, but a good 'un. I was follerin' that trail when I slipped and come down, breakin’ the gun at the stock. It wasn't any good any more, so I threw it away, but I was determined to have that catamount, and as I had a good big knife I hung to the trail. Finally, after three or four miles, the trail begun to get fresher every step. I kept watchin' and discovered the catamount up in the rocks, just a little higher’n my head. I looked the catamount squar' in the eye and he looked at me. I concluded that I was more’n a match for him and got a good brace and made a lunge. Just as I started, that catamount leaped straight at me, but I had such a start and had such a grip on my knife that my arm went clear through the catamount and burled itself way up above the elbow in a log. Then I had to wait until a friend of mine came along and sawed the log in two.
"Yes, that was funny, but I've seen other things just as funny. Why, there was a time up here when rabbits were so awful thick that you had to let the bars down in order to get a dog into a lot.
"Rain? Why, I've seen it rain awful in these mountains. Talk about it rainin' so hard that water stood on the peaked roof of a house! Why, that wasn't in it to a rainstorm we had here one night. I thought it was a cloudburst, but it was only a shower. Minervie got frightened and I thought I'd see how hard it was rainin', so I knocked both heads out of a barrel, and it actually rained so hard through the bung that the water couldn't get out the two ends.
"We had a cat one time that beat all the cats you ever heard of. Minervie and I both loved her and made a great pet of her, but she begun to get old and it made us sad. We put up with about everything she did, just because we loved her, until she begun to have fits. And such fits -- never heard of anything to compare with 'em. We'd been thnkin' about killin' her and those fits settled it. Minervie and I discussed the various ways of killin’ cats. You see, we wanted to make sure of the job, and yet we wanted to do it in the humanist way. It was finally agreed that I should cut her head off and throw her in the lake. Minervie wouldn't help and I had to do it all. I took the pieces in the boat and rowed down to the foot of the lake, where I dropped in the head. Then I rowed up to Bog River Falls, where I threw in the body, all weighted down with stones. When I got home I told Minervie I thought I had done a good job and she agreed with me. But what do you suppose? Along toward mornin' I heard a noise at the door that sounded just like the old cat wantin' to come in. When I opened the- door there she was, to be sure-our old pet cat carryin' her head in her mouth."
1903 OCT – SEP Malone Farmer
Mark Moody, the famous Tupper lake guide, who can beat any guide in the Adirondacks for telling stories, has the following to say about Harry Radford, the promoter of the movement to protect the bear and the editor of Woods and Water magazine.
“Well friend Radford, after looking over your provisions of your new bill for the protection of black bear and listening to the objections of some of the timorous farmers in this section, I think I have solved the difficulty in a way that will be satisfactory to all involved.
I first caught on to the wrinkle about 1870, that year I took a lumber job about four miles back in the woods from Tupper Lake. In the Spring after the job was done, we moved out of camp on the snow, but were unable to haul out our duffle so we left a small load behind. Fearing the roads might break up I went back within a few days to pick up the remainder.
Now, we used maple syrup for our pancakes, which we kept in 25 gallon kegs. These we left near a brook on breaking camp. The syrup had been all used up, but a very little and this streaked around the bottom and inner sides of the kegs. The hoops around the top of the kegs being loose, I had driven some long nails to hold them on.
On arriving to the camp I heard some very strange noise in the clearing where we cut our winter’s firewood. After loading up, I remembered the kegs, went done to the brook for them and found them gone. Still hearing the noise I went out into the woodlot. On arriving the first thing to do was sit on a stump and laugh, for I swear, if there weren’t two bears, with each a syrup keg on his head, trying to get clear.
Bears love sweet above all things. They had found the kegs, and in trying to get every drop of syrup, had stuck their heads so far down, that the points of nails stuck behind their ears and they could not get the kegs off. When I got there, they were trying to whack them against the stumps, but missed every time being completely blindfolded from the kegs. I ran back, got some ropes and tied there legs, then cut the hoops on the kegs and I had to fine bears.
Now, why won’t this experience serve farmers who are afraid of your bill for the protection of Bruin, just let them set a few syrup kegs around the sheep pastures and look them over each morning and tie up the bears as I did, then put them aside in safe enclosures. By the time of the next presidential election the farmers will have a large quantity of fine bears for sale. Then if the price of wool goes down, the can get independently rich selling syrup fed bears.
1903 DEC 17 Elizabethtown Post
We note the fact that the Saranac Lake-Lake Placid paper referred last, week to Martin and Simeon Moody, speaking of Martin as nephew of Simeon, Martin Moody is of the family after whom the Moody Post Office was named and he is the Moody Postmaster today. "Mart" Moody, the champion story teller who has so often been written up is a son of the late Captain Jacob S. Moody of Battle of Plattsburg fame and pioneer of the Saranac Lake region and although he is two years younger than Simeon J. Moody, he is, nevertheless the latter’s uncle. Simeon J. Moody is son of the late Harvey Moody who was a son of the late Captain Jacob S. Moody and a brother of the inimitable “Mart" Moody of today.
We might add that "Mart" and Simeon J. Moody are both valuable, cash paying in advance Post subscribers and that both favored our office with an exceedingly interesting visit a week ago today just as we were getting ready to go to press.
In favor of North Elba,
The St. Armand—North Elba boundary line matter, which has engaged the attention of the Essex Co. Board of Supervisors for the past week, was brought to a close yesterday afternoon. Quite a number of St. Armand and North Elba men have been in Elizabeth town since the special order of business came up a week ago to-day and interest in the matter has waxed warm. Many witnesses were sworn, principally surveyors and their helpers. Among the important witnesses who testified before the Board were "Mart" and Simeon J. Moody, Andrew J. Baker, R. W. Clifford, Ell wood Wilson, James M. DeLong, A. E. Coonrod, S. W. Barnard, W.S. Wood, James Shea and James W. Steele, the latter testifying before a Committee, McGuire, Severance and Walker, at his home. In the town of Lewis F. A. Rowe of Glens Falls argued for St. Armand and ex-Judge Francis A. Smith of Elizabethtown represented North Elba. The Board voted yesterday afternoon, 10 to 8, to establish the line between the two towns as it was surveyed by James DeLong and A. E, Coonrod the past season, this line agreeing substantially with the Bull Nash survey made in 1851 and with the line run by James W. Steele 25 years ago.
1905 APR 5 Malone Farmer
Mart Moody, the veteran guide and hunter, who has been housed up nearly all winter, took advantage of the warm weather and visited Tupper Lake last Tuesday. Mr. Moody states that the prospect of an excellent summer resort business in that locality was never better, as he’s receiving an unprecedented number of inquiries for locations.
1906 JAN 2 Commercial Advertiser
Guides have strange flights of fancy and exaggeration in their story telling. One of Mart Moody's favorite yarns was about a rubber boat. "A sportsman gave me a rubber boat," said Mart in relating the story once. "The sportsman told me that I would find it at Baker's dock in the Saranac River, and sure enough it was there when I arrived. I got it into the water, loaded in my pack basket and started out. It rowed hard. Other guides came along and went right by me. I began to think of the old days when I could row a boat with the best of them. And the more I thought of it the more certain I was that my day was past. I put more strength into them oars just in memory of the days when I was a good man than I ever did into oars before, but, the boat did not go any faster. I was pretty blue when this feller and that feller ran right ahead of me. Finally I got up to the landing to the camp on Miller Pond and stood up to step ashore, when zip! that boat went out from under me. I had forgot to untie it from Baker's dock." - Saranac Lake Enterprise.
1907 JAN 9 Malone Farmer
Uncle Mart Moody, one of the famous old guides of the Adirondacks, is still mentally keen and active, notwithstanding his advanced years, and took a walk about Tupper Lake village the other day. He enjoys telling a good story as well as ever And has never but once employed a physician in all his life. That was when he suffered from an attack of sunstroke.
1908 JUN 3 The Malone Farmer
Frederick Emerson, of Newton, Mass., who owned the Emerson cottage on Big Tupper Lake, where he passed his summers, shot himself with suicidal intent last week. A few months ago while visiting in the West, his manner was such that a specialist was consulted and he was sent to the Butler Hospital for the Insane at Providence R. I. He escaped from his keepers recently and went to Tupper Lake.
The superintendent traced him there and prevailed upon him to consent to return to the hospital. He had been staying a t Hotel Altamont, and the day preceding the time set for his return he engaged a team and drove to his cottage. He stopped for the key at Mart Moody's.
Mr. Moody went over to the cottage with him. Mr. Emerson requested Moody to go down the road and let down a chain stretched across it so that a friend, who was coming from Tupper Lake, could drive up. After Mr. Moody left he heard a shot and returned instantly to find that Mr. Emerson had rested big 38 caliber rifle on the floor, placed the muzzle toward him and reached over and pulled the trigger. He sat upon a bench at the time, and the bullet, after plowing through his side and out of his back, flattened out upon the bench. Emerson was conscious when Mr. Moody reached him and said he preferred to die among his friends than to go back to the sanitarium.
He first came to Saranac Lake for his health about 18 years ago and rapidly improved, later removing to Tupper Lake and building the well known Emerson cottage. Mr. Emerson died Wednesday evening. He had planned his suicide most systematically, having arranged to have Dr Austin, of Tupper Lake, visit him at his cottage at about the time he calculated he would have accomplished his purpose and the doctor drove up very soon after the shooting. The reason he did not shoot himself through the heart was that he wanted to live long afterward to tell how and why he did it. Several other physicians were summoned by Mr. Moody and they sent for Dr. Oliver of this village. After his arrival it was decided to operate to remove a part of the intestines which had been torn by the bullet in the hope of saving the man’s life, but, Mr. Emerson declared that he did not want to live to return to the sanitarium. He was a very generous and compassionate man and his readiness to help others had made him many warm friends at Tupper Lake. He was a graduate of Harvard Law school and was reported to be wealthy.
1908 JUL The Malone Farmer
Under the tittle of "An Adirondacker" the Adirondack Enterprise has the following: 'Twenty years ago Grover Cleveland was a frequent visitor to the woods of the Adirondacks. Uncle Mart Moody, of Big Tupper Lake catered to his simple wants; he spent much time at Paul Smith's and with 'Uncle Paul Smith drove many miles through the mountains.
1910 MAY 25 The Malone Farmer
Mart Moody one of the pioneer settlers of the Tupper lake region and most famous of the Adirondack Guides was stricken with paralysis Thursday and owing to his advance age recovery was not expected.
1910 MAY 26 Elizabethtown Post
Uncle Mart Moody, who was reared in the Saranac Lake region but who went into the Tupper Lake section to live many years ago, being granted a large tract of land there, was recently stricken with paralysis. He is one of the greatest, story tellers in the Adirondacks.
His last visit to Elizabethtown was in December, 1903, at the time of the St. Armand -North Elba boundary line dispute, he having been called here as a witness upon that occasion.
1910 JUN, Commercial Advisertiser
Martin Moody, the famous Adirondack guide and story teller, of Big Tupper Lake, is dead, having succumbed to a stroke of paralysis following which he lived only a week. He was born at Saranac Lake and spent all his life in the mountains. He received an excellent education and studied in a law office at Elizabethtown for a time, but was forced to forego a professional career on account of an injury to his head by a falling tree. He took up guiding and hotel keeping and became famous, entertaining and being employed by many eminent guest. to the woods.
He settled at Tupper Lake and built the Tupper Lake House, afterwards known as the Mt. Morris House, in 1868. This hotel afterwards became the Prince Albert, has been almost entirely rebuilt and is now conducted by R. N. Page. After disposing of the Mt. Morris House, Mr. Moody built resort called Camp Redside further up the lake, which he conducted for some time. This was later enlarged and is called the Waukesha, owned by J. D. Alexander.
Among those whom Mr. Moody guided or entertained were Alfred B. Street, Prof. Agassiz, "Adirondack" Murray and Grover Cleveland. For the past 13 years Mr. Moody had been retired, conducting the post office and carrying on a small store at his home. He had been postmaster since the administration of President Arthur. He was a man of high intelligence, honest, openhearted and kindly in all his fellow relations. (His stories were full of a quaint, rare humor which always pleased his hearers. "Uncle Mart" was unable to speak after his shock, but retained some measure of consciousness almost to the last, and died clasping the hand of his faithful wife. He was nearly 77 years of age.
1910 JUN 2 Elizabethtown Post
Uncle Martin Moody, or ''Uncle Mart” as his many friends called him, died at his Moody, N. Y., home on the shores of Big Tupper Lake last Thursday, aged nearly 77 years. He was born in the Saranac Lake region June 17, 1933 being the youngest son of the late Captain Jacob Moody. Captain Jacob Moody was a War of 1812 soldier of note and received a grant of land where the thriving village of Saranac Lake now stands. Captain Jacob married for his second wife Polly Kent Dudley of the late Arod Kent Dudley of Elizabethtown. Uncle Mart was the last survivor of Captain Jacob M6ody's family of 10 children, six sons and four daughters. All are gone, but, their children's children have become people of note in the various Adirondack Communities where they survive.
"Uncle Mart" intended to be a lawyer and came to Elizabethtown to study law but an injury received to his head by a falling tree forced him to give up work in this line. In January, 1861, be married Minerva Reid of Bloomingdale who survives him. The couple has no children. In the spring of 1868 “Uncle Mart” and his wife located on Tupper Lake, building a small hotel or sporting house. This was the foundation of the hamlet of Moody, named after "Uncle Mart," who received a patent of land from the State in view of his activities there and was also appointed Postmaster by President Arthur, holding the office till his death. He served as a guide for Adirondack Murray, Alfred B. Street, Professor Agassiz, and Grover Cleveland. As a story teller ''Uncle Mart" was inimitable. His last visit to Elizabethtown was in December, 1903 at the ttime of the North Elba-St Armand
1912 Commercial Advertiser
Simeon J. Moody, one of the first settlers of the Racquette River country in the Adirondacks died at his home in Tupper Lake. He went to Tupper Lake from Saranac Lake and settled in the wilderness at Racquette Pond in 1856. At that time there was nothing but a sweep of woods from North Creek to Saranac Lake.
1919 MAR 5 Malone Farmer
"It was a blame cold day," he said, "and the lines froze up stiffer then fence wire. Just as fast I pulled them in, and my fingers got so damn frosted I couldn't bait the hooks, but, the fish was thicker and hungrier in flies in June. So I just took a piece of bait and held it over one of the holes. Every time a fish jumped to get it, I'd kick him out on the ice. I tell you sir, I kicked out more 'n four hundred pounds of pick'rel that morning. Yaas, 'twas a lot, I know, but then it was a cold day; I just stacked 'em up solid like cordwood.”
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’s 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 his sons Phineas and William. 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. 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 forth man we have a rapid sketch of Harvey Moody. He was 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 felt hat 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 akimbo, 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. 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.
1921 Donaldson History Of the Adirondacks
THE MOODYS
Jacob Smith Moody was not only the first settler in what is now one corner of the village, but he was the first settler in the region. He came to it in 1819. At that time his nearest neighbor to the north was some ten miles away. This was Isaac Livingston, who was living on the North West Bay Road, about five miles beyond the later Nokes settlement in West Harrietstown. Moody 's nearest neighbor to the east was Moses Hazelton, about five miles away toward Lake Placid. If Jacob, therefore, was seeking isolation, he clearly found it.
He was born in Keene, N. H., in 1787, and died at Saranac Lake in 1863. He came to the mountains in consequence of an injury received in a sawmill at Keene, and which incapacitated him for further work of the sort he had hitherto done. He squatted first on what is now Highland Park, and sought to procure title to some land there. Difficulties arose, however, and he moved to "the pines," near the present cemetery. Here he cleared sixteen acres of land, to which he later received a deed from the State. This tract, which is in the Town of North Elba, lies east of River Street. Within it are the following well known places : Moody Pond, the Gordon Cottage, Ben Moody 's homestead, and the village cemetery.
Jacob Moody built a log cabin on the North West Bay Road, at the foot of the steep hillside of pines, where the upper road to Lake Placid crosses the railroad track. Here he lived for many years, but finally built a better home at what is now No.154 River Street, where one of his grandsons — Benjamin R. Moody — still lives.
In the original log cabin an event of some historical moment occurred. In it the first white baby in this region was born, and to emphasize this distinction another was thrust upon him in the unusual name of Cortez Fernando. From this it would seem that the pioneer was a reader of history and an admirer of the conqueror of Mexico. Of course the high-sounding name was soon contracted to "Cort," and its Spanish origin speedily forgotten.
Jacob had three children when he came to the Adirondack wilderness — Eliza, Harvey, and Smith. Those born in the log cabin were: Cortez, Daniel, Martin, and Franklin, making a family of seven. The five boys married, and four of them had large families, as the table below will show: JACOB 8. MOODY
Eliza, the only girl, and Franklin died young and left no issue. The five others all lived to become famous hunters, trappers, and guides. They were known far and wide in the early days, and their names are of constant occurrence in all early Adirondack books.
Uncle Mart --- Martin Moody was the only one of these boys who had no children. He was born in 1833, and married Minerva M. Read of Bloomingdale, in 1861. In 1868 he moved to Big Tupper Lake, and at the foot of it built a famous hotel for sportsmen.
This was called the "Tupper Lake House," and was a rather small affair. He sold it after a few years and built a larger hotel at the northeast end of the lake. This was called the "Mount Morris House," and was built in 1879. It burned and was rebuilt in 1889, and the name was changed to "Redside Camp." Moody 's place was always called by his own name, however, and "Moody" became the official designation of the post-office established there. His widow remained post mistress till 1914, when she resigned on account of age and failing health. The old hotel is now in other hands, but is still run as a summer resort.
All of the Moody boys guided some of the most distinguished visitors that ever came to the Adirondacks, but "Uncle Mart," as he was popularly called, probably had the longest and most notable list to his credit. When in his teens he guided J. T. Headley and Alfred B. Street, the historians. He was guide for Governor Horatio Seymour on his famous trip through the mountains, when Lady Amelia M. Murray was the guest of honor and the first woman of record to travel across the Adirondacks. He lived with Ned Buntline at his solitary "Eagle's Nest," and he was the favorite guide of President Chester A. Arthur and of Grover Cleveland. He was also on terms of intimacy with Gerrit Smith and John Brown, and when the body of the abolitionist was brought back to the North Elba farm, Mart Moody was one of those chosen to help lower the casket into the mountain grave. He was one of the guides at the "Philosophers' Camp." He worked for Adirondack Murray, Colvin, Ely, Wallace, Stoddard, Todd —for all the men, in short, whose names are conspicuous in Adirondack annals.
When he opened an unpretentious hunting-lodge in an excellent fish-and-game center, these men and their friends brought it patronage and reputation, and for years it was considered by discriminating sportsmen one of the choicest spots in the woods. The host's personality naturally played an important part in his success. He was not only, like all his
brothers, a past master in all the arts of woodcraft, but he had a marked gift for companionship and humorous narrative. He died on May 26, 1910, and was the last of Jacob Moody 's sons to pass away.
1952 MAY 22 Tupper Lake Free Press and Herald
Uncle Mart Moody subject of New Times Article back On May 10, 1903
If a Tupper man today rates a mention In the New York Times, It's "really something" A half century ago one of the citizens of this village, was the subject of a full-page article In the Times, It appeared on May 10, 1903, and we're Indebted to Percy Alexander for an opportunity to reprint the highlights. Martin K. Moody, son of Saranac Lake's first settler, Jacob Moody, began guiding parties to the Tupper's Lake region around 1850. On Jan. 6, 1861, he married Minerva Reid at North Elba (Lake Placid), and in 1868 he erected a little four-room log "hotel" on the present site of the Prince Albert, on the shores of Big Tupper Lake. The Rev. W.H. B. Murray had published a book in the mid 1860s which described Adirondack fishing and hunting in such glowing terms that it brought sportsmen swarming in to this region. Between "Uncle Mart's" guiding and storytelling talents, and "Aunt Minerva's" cooking, the Moodys did a thriving business during the season. The great and near-great of their day, including two presidents of the United States were numbered among their guests, and the fame of Uncle Mart to reflected in the Times article, reprinted herewith:
1955 FEB 3 Tupper Lake Free Press and Herald
I had a favorite hound, a bitch I took with me whenever I took to the woods for a little camp meat. I took her this one time, just before she was due to have pups. I was a little nervous about her, I didn’t want her to get over tired in her weekend state, but, after some hesitation we took to the hunt. It twarnt long she caught a scent and was off like a shot. After a few hours I returned to camp, she had disappeared, out a ear shot, so I waited, I was a bit unnerved to say the least, but I didn’t want to go home without out her. At last I heard her, then I saw her coming down the trail, yelp’in and a howl’in and driving a deer, and behind her were six pups, each one driving a deer of their own. Yup! Quite a dog that one.
Mart was the one who told of an encounter with a bear, of the chase the bear gave him and of his worsting by the huge beast. At the most dramatic point in the yarn he would stop dead, leaving the listener to ask. "What happened then" He would answer in his own special way "What could I do' I backed agin' the tree and died like a dog."
1959 OCT 15 Tupper Lake Free Press and Herald
"Aunt Minerva", that's what she was to everyone who knew her, just as he was "Uncle Mart”, told me about their first year here.
An Adirondack Guide boat is stowed what clothes they had, flour, salt, sugar and tea. hand tools and the few utensils they must have. The second year would see a Little patch cleared so they could raise potatoes, corn for flour and make maple sugar for "sweetening" They went to Potsdam for their mail and supplies but needless to say, not often. The trip to Potsdam by the winding Racquette is much farther than the road of today
Someone had given Aunt Minerva, a little fancy, solid oak parlor table for a wedding present. She couldn't bear to leave it—she loved it so—so, Uncle Mart added it to the load. Her grand niece, Helen Minogue Cutting has it now, stripped of its many coats of paint and shining in its original splendor.
After the Civil War, more and more sportsmen came thru here. In those days, every sportsman or sportswoman had one or more guides so that catering to them meant good business. Uncle Mart enlarged his place In 1868, called it the Tupper Lake House, then the Mount Morris House and was In business, good business, for his many friends came to him.
In 1888, he sold to Pliny Robbins and moved up the lake to where Waukesha Cabins now are. He called his "hotel", first Moody's, then he enlarged it and called it Redside Camp.
Among the famous people who were his friends were President Chester A. Arthur. After a visit here, he went back to Washington, established a fourth class post office and called it Moody, in honor of Uncle Mart.
Another friend, President Grover Cleveland, coming thru with a party on a canoe trip as everyone had to travel then, stopped overnight at Redside Camp. He didn't think he could spare more than one day but he stayed three. In the party was Alton E. Parker, later Supreme Court Judge and candidate for president. He stopped at Waukesha in 1914 with his grandson Alton Parker Hall to show him just the same route and the same places he had visited with the President. That was the last famous canoe party for Waukesha.
It was he who told me that the President was so enchanted with Uncle Mart's stories that he invited him to Washington for a day. Mr. William P. Ketcham, whose Camp Ashanty, on Big Tupper is still occupied with his widow every summer, went to Washington with Uncle Mart and he used to tell with great relish about Uncle Marts s descriptions of his stay in the White House.
During one of these sessions with the guides, one of them said, "Mart, where was Mrs. Cleveland all that day?" He went on, "You've said nothing about her and I’m wondering," Said Uncle Mart, always ready with an answer, "Well, it was washday and she was busy".
Uncle Mart was not a politician. He served as Postmaster as long as he lived, as a Highway Commissioner, Assessor, and Justice of the Peace. The Moodys were a remarkable couple. They had no children but they took in more stray guides whether they had need of them or not and more relatives than anyone else I've ever known.
1964 JULY 2 Tupper Lake Free Press
It was my privilege to intimately know Uncle Mart and his buxom wife, Aunt Minerva. They ran the Moody post office and were paid by "cancellation" which means that their income from the office was baaed on the amount of outgoing mail. During the vacation period, June, July and August, their "take" was rather handsome but for the other nine months it was practically nil. To augment their income they had a little store behind the postoffice where they sold soft drinks, candy, postcards, souvenirs and other nicknacks. I was hired for $20 a month with room and board to operate this small business. I thoroughly enjoyed the two summers I was there, during which time I was able to gain an intimate insight of this fabulous character. To sustain, his robust health Uncle Mart felt the necessity to imbibe a wee bit of nourishing whiskey with such frequency as he felt adequate to maintain his health. This practice was looked upon with disapproval by his good wife, who considered it to be a social problem. In the little store which was my domain was a sugar barrel for the storage of chicken feed. It was Uncle Mart's practice to hide his bottle in the depth of the feed where it was readily available in the event of an attack. These seizures sometimes took place at the dinner table when the old gentleman would suddenly grasp his stomach, grimace and writhe in simulated pain, and still grasping his stomach, leave, to seek his surreptitiously hidden bottle. Within a minute he would return to the table, fully recovered and unmindful of the accusing glance of the lovely old lady who was his wife. Uncle Mart had several pairsUncle Mart had several pairs of glasses. Upon rising in the morning he would take his glasses to the front porch overlooking Big Tupper Lake, and try each pair, finally selecting a pair which he wore for the day. If there were listeners about he would regale them with his hunting and fishing stories, some of them very wild. The story I liked best was the time, after a tiring day of hunting, he found rest on a log atop Page's Bluff. Having fired the last charge from his muzzle-loading gun, he unleashed his powder horn and unhappily dropped it into the ten or twelve feet of water at the base of the bluff while musing on his bad luck a friendly Indian came along and offered to retrieve the horn. Diving in, the Indian took an inordinate time, so much in fact that Uncle Mart became nervous. At this point the old man would pause giving the tense situation plenty of time to sink in. Then, with a sly grin he would say, "After five minutes I got worried about that Indian and in the hope that I might save his life, I dove in and what do you know? I found that redskin sitting on a rock at the bottom of the lake taking the powder out of my horn and putting it in his own pouch!"
I was entranced by another of the old guide's stories which goes like this. It was one fall afternoon, he had run out of shot for his gun and was slowly wending his way homeward after a hard, but unproductive day. At the moment he was munching a mouthful of choke cherries picked from an overhanging branch. He was about to spit out the seeds when the thought struck him that he could use them in his gun in lieu of shot. Acting upon this brilliant impulse he rammed in a load of powder followed by the mouthful of cherry pits. Continuing his homeward journey he had about reached his boat, tied on the south shore of Big Simond's Pond, when he sighted a beautifully antlered buck, well within shooting range. Raising his gun to his shoulder the old fellow let him have it. At this time there was the pause which triggered the inevitable question. "Did you get ‘im, Uncle Mart?"
"No", answered the old man. after giving the question sufficient time for the suspense to thicken. "No, I didn't get him but I tickled him up some. The next year I shot a big buck on the north side of Mt. Morris and when I got to it, I found a crop of small cherry trees growing out of his back."
Mr. Moody was a picturesque, colorful character whose fabulous tales have contributed much to the early lore of this area. Uncle Mart and Aunt Minerva never had any children of their own, but were never happier than when they were in the presence of young people. Lest some old friend be irked by my reference to Uncle Mart's drinking habits, let him be at ease. In all the years I knew this fine old gentleman, I never saw him in a state of inebriation. He only used It, as he often said, for medicinal purposes". (Continued in our next issue).