4. JOHN 4 MOODY, GENT. (George 3, Richard 2, Edmund 1) was baptized at Moulton, County Suffolk, 8 April 1593, and by the will of his father received a patrimony of £200 when 24 years of age. When a young man he located in Bury St. Edmunds, County Suffolk, where he continued until 1633 ®687 when he emigrated to New England, and was admitted a freeman of the Massachusetts Bay Colony 5 November 1633. He lived a few years at Roxbury, Massachusetts, then settled in Hartford, Connecticut. In the Moody Pedigree compiled in 1658 by the Suffolk antiquary, Matthias Candler, he refers to this John Moody thus: "John Moody went over to New England." (Candler’s Pedigrees, Harleian Mss. No. 6071, p. 512, British Museum, London). Mr. Moody died in Hartford, Connecticut in 1655.
The will of John Moody of Hartford, dated 23 July 1655. "Wife Sarah Moody sole executrix and to have all household goods and half the residue of estate; the other half to son Samuel Moody at age of 24 years. To Elizabeth Pepper £25. Witness, Gregory Wolterton, John Barnard, Francis Barnard. " Inventory was taken 6 Dec 1655 and totaled £300-14-6. The Will was proved on 6 December 1655. (Hartford Probate Records, Vol. 2, p. 81.)
He married by license at St. James, Bury St. Edmunds, 8 September 1617, Sarah Cox. She died at Hadley, Mass, in 1671.
Children recorded at St. James, Bury St. Edmunds:
i. John, 5 baptized 1 January 1618/9; buried 5 January 1618/9.
ii. John, baptized 3 March 1621/2; buried 5 March 1621/2.
iii. Hannah, baptized 11 November 1624; buried 11 November 1624.
iv. Samuel, baptized 16 July 1631; buried 19 July 1631.
v. Samuel, born in New England about 1635; only surviving child of his parents; settled in Hadley, Massachusetts, where he died in 1689. He married about 1658 Sarah Deming, by whom he had five children.

"She was perhaps the Sarah Cox baptized at St. James, Bury St. Edmunds, 17 May 1598, daughter of Christopher Cox”.

This is a copy of the data collected by William R. Moody, East Northfield, Massachusetts (son of Dwight L. Moody) and Donald Lines Jacobus after quite an extensive search in England and in New England.
March 1925 L. W. Moody (son of Warren L. Moody) (copy in David Moody file John)


He was about ten years old when his mother died and over fourteen at his father’s death, and he was probably brought up either by his stepmother, Christian (Cramp) Moody, or by his brother-in-law, Thomas Kilbourne, the executor of his father’s will, according to which he was to receive £ 200 at the age of twenty-four. This legacy was probably paid to him before his marriage.
He had two "ungodly” men servants, who were drowned on the "oister bank” in Roxbury, Massachusetts on 6 August 1633. "Mr.” John Moody was admitted a freeman at Roxbury 5 November 1633 and served as deputy to the General Court in 1635. He soon moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where in February 1639 he received lands in the original distribution of Hartford. ®1495 ®1496He died not earlier than 25 Jul 1655 (the date of his will). (Hartford was a Dutch trading post in 1633. It was settled as Newtown in 1635 and renamed Hartford in 1637.) He had a son Samuel, born in New England, who finally settled at Hadley, Massachusetts where his mother, the widow Sarah Moody, died in 1671.
He was a Proprietor of Hartford, Connecticut, and his home lot (#150), was about 4 acres and was on Main Street (the corner of the highway leading from George Steele’s to the South Meadow, and the highway leading from the Town toward Wethersfield on the East), (bounded by Main, Buckingham, John and Park Streets) opposite that of Gov. George Wyllys from whom he purchased the land in February 1644. ®8 He had additional lands. He was a town officer of Hartford in 1639 and 1640 and was lieutenant of the militia as early as 1640.

“John Moody, came to Roxbury in 1633 with wife Sarah. Freeman Nov. 5, 1635. An original donor of the Free Scoole [sic]. Removed to Hartford, Conn.” ®1461

He was a Deacon of the Hartford Congregational Church of Rev. John Russell. ®8

Moody, with its variants Moodey, Moodie and Mudie has its source as a nickname, "the moody” namely, the brave, the bold, the resolute. This was a common sobriquet in the Hundred Rolls. The Scotch form is Mudie, and Moody frequently hails from over the border. We hear of Adam Mody in the Hundred Rolls of County Oxford, 1273, and of Simon Modi in those of County Cambridge. Johannes Mody, husband, is in the Poll Tax of York.

The Moody family of England is of ancient lineage, and in the case of Deacon John Moody, the immigrant, has been preserved in the Harleian manuscripts in the British Museum. Deacon John Moody, ancestor of the line herein traced, came to New England in 1633, and located at Roxbury, Massachusetts. He left a son, Samuel, and a daughter, Elizabeth. Another immigrant ancestor of the Moody family in New England was William Moody, who came to this country from Wales in 1633. He married Sarah, surname unknown, and had three sons, Samuel, Joshua, and Caleb. (Bardsley:Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames. Harrison: Surnames of the United Kingdom. Cutter:Genealogical and Family History of the State of Connecticut, Vol. I, p. 17.)
He joined the church of the Reverend John Eliot of Roxbury as member #69 ®1497and stayed there for 7 years, assisting Reverend Eliot in trying to make Christians of the native Indians. (Eliot translated the Bible into the Indian language and funded a school for Indian education in a building at Harvard College. ®8) He lived in Roxbury during the 1635 "Great Colonial Hurricane” of which William Bradford, leader of Plymouth Colony said: "Such a mighty storm of wind and rain as none living in these parts, neither English or Indian ever saw...It blew down many hundred thousands of trees.” He moved with Reverend Thomas Hooker to establish the plantation at Hartford between 1636 and February 1639/40. Hartford was a Dutch trading post in 1633. Hartford was explored as Newtown in 1634, and the first few families moved there in 1635. ®1475 It was renamed Hartford in 1637. His name is on the Founders Monument in Hartford.

JOHN MOODY

ORIGIN: Moulton, Suffolk
MIGRATION: 1633
FIRST RESIDENCE: Roxbury
REMOVES: Hartford by 1639
CHURCH MEMBERSHIP: Admitted to Roxbury church as member #69:
He came to the land in the year 1633. He had no children. He had two men servants, that were ungodly, especially one of them; who in his passion would wish himself in hell; & use desperate words, yet had a good measure of knowledge. These 2 servants would go to the oyster bank in a boat, & did, against the counsel of their governor, where they lay all night; & in the morning early when the tide was out they gathering oysters, did unskillfully leave their boat afloat, in the verges of the channel, & quickly the tide carried it away so far into the channel that they could not come near it, which made them cry out & hallow, but being very early & remote were not heard, till the water had risen very high upon them to the armholes as it's thought, & then a man from Rockbrough meeting house hill heard them cry & call, & he cried & ran with all speed, & seeing their boat swam to it, & hastened to them, but they were both so drowned before any help could possibly come, a dreadful example of God's displeasure against obstinate servants [RChR 78].
   (Winthrop tells this same story, with minor differences in detail, but with the same moralistic judgment, and dates the event as 6 August 1633 [WJ 1:126]; one of these servants was THOMAS DESBRE, administration of whose estate was granted to John Moody on 3 September 1633 [MBCR 1:108].) ®1498
FREEMAN: 5 November 1633 (as "Mr. John Moody") [MBCR 1:368].
EDUCATION: The inventory included a parcel of books valued at £2 10s.
OFFICES: Deputy to General Court for Roxbury, 2 September 1635 [MBCR 1:156].
   Lieutenant, Hartford train band, April 1640 [CT Civil List 37].
ESTATE: In the Hartford land inventory of February 1639[/40] "John Moodie" held six parcels which were granted to him; he also had two parcels by purchase, which were later exchanged for other parcels: four acres with dwelling house, outhouses, yards and gardens; twenty-six acres of upland; six acres in the South Meadow; four acres in the South Meadow "which was sequestered for Abram Pratt & is now settled on John Moody by the inhabitants of the town"; two roods in the Neck of Land "which was sequestered for Abram Pratt & now settled on John Moody by the inhabitants of the town"; four acres in Hockanum; fourteen acres in a great swamp, purchased of Nathaniel Cole; another parcel "in the same tier of lots," purchased of Nathaniel Cole; these last two parcels exchanged with John Grave for thirteen acres in the great swamp [HaBOP 210-12].
   The will of John Moody was dated 23 July 1655 and proved in December 1655: "The last will & testament of John Moody late of Hartford: I do make my loving wife Sarah Moody sole executrix, and I do will that half of all that I have, both land and stuff (excepting the household stuff, which I leave wholly to my wife), I give to my son Samuel Moody for to have it at the age of twenty-four years. I will also that Elizabeth Pepper shall have five & twenty pound paid her within a year, and a petticoat and a waistcoat & a pair of shoes; and this and all my debts for to be paid out of the whole" [Hartford PD Case #3758; Manwaring 1:138; RPCC 156].
   The inventory of the estate of John Moody, taken 6 December 1655, totalled £300 14s. 6d., of which £110 was real estate: "11 acres of meadow," £40; "two parcels of upland," £10; and "the homelot with all the housing thereupon," £60 [Hartford PD Case #3758; Manwaring 1:138]
BIRTH: Baptized Moulton, Suffolk, 8 April 1593, son of George and Margaret (Chenery) Moody of Moulton [NEHGR 80:326-27; TAG 64:1-11].
DEATH: Hartford between 25 July 1655 (date of will) and 6 December 1655 (date of inventory).
MARRIAGE: Bury St. Edmunds St. James, Suffolk, 8 September 1617 Sarah Cox. She was baptized at Bury St. Edmunds St. James on 17 May 1598 [NEHGR 80:326]. "Sarah Moody, the wife of John Moody," was admitted to Roxbury church as member #70, immediately after her husband [RChR 78]. She died at Hadley 4 November 1671 [HadVR 80].
CHILDREN (dates for i-vi from NEHGR 80:327):

i   (poss.) JOHN, bp. Bury St. Edmunds St. James, 3 December 1617; no further record.  
ii   JOHN, bp. Bury St. Edmunds St. James 1 January 1618/9; bur. there 5 January 1618/9.
iii   JOHN, bp. Bury St. Edmunds St. James 3 March 1621/2; bur. there 5 March 1621/2.
iv   HANNAH, bp. Bury St. Edmunds St. James 11 November 1624; bur. there the same day.  
v   SAMUEL, bp. Bury St. Edmunds St. James 16 July 1631; bur. there 19 July 1631.
vi   JOHN, bp. Moulton, Suffolk, October 1632; no further record.
vii   SAMUEL, b. say 1634; m. say 1659 Sarah _____ (based on estimated ages of children).

ASSOCIATIONS: Frances Moody, sister of John Moody, married Thomas Kilbourn, and this couple came to New England in 1635, settling in Wethersfield [Hale, House 652-56]. A third sibling, Elizabeth Moody, married John Pratt of Wood Ditton, Cambridgeshire, but this was not the JOHN PRATT of Cambridge and Hartford in New England [TAG 64:11].
COMMENTS: John Moody was involved in civil actions before the Connecticut Particular Court on 1 August 1639, 5 September 1639, 29 October 1646 and 3 March 1652/3 [RPCC 4, 5, 44, 45, 115; CCCR 1:29, 33]. On 27 January 1642/3 he swore to the will of Richard Lyman [CCCR 1:81].
Savage read Elizabeth Pepper of the will as Elizabeth "Seger." She must have been Elizabeth (Johnson) Pepper, wife of Robert.
BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTE: In 1926 Miss Lillian J. Redstone of London, England, communicated a thorough study of the English Moody ancestry of John Moody to the Register [NEHGR 80:313-27]. Frederick J. Nicholson identified the mother of John Moody and in 1989 and 1991 published information on her ancestry [TAG 64:1-11, 66:197-204]. ®1442

He may have had some legal training in England as on 29 October 1619 he inventoried the will of William Walden of Coventry. He came to America in 1633 on the ship “Mary and John”. ®8

The total of all immigrants to New England from 1620 to 1633 was about 2500. In 1634, in other words, the European population of New England nearly doubled. ®1497

The Founders of Hartford ®1491
John Moody, second son of George Moody, of Moulton, Co. Suffolk, who #147;#was famous for his good housekeeping and plain dealing,” by his wife, Lydia,1 came in 1633 to Roxbury, says the Church record; freeman, Mass., Nov. 5, 1633; was an original proprietor, Hartford, 1639, and his home-lot was on Main St., opposite to George Wyllys's lot; townsman 1639, 1640; Lieut. in 1640; he d. prob. in 1655 ; will dated July 23, 1655; inv. Dec. 6, 1655; £300. 14: mentions wife Sarah, son Samuel, and leaves £25 to Elizabeth Pepper. Mrs. Sarah Moody d. in Hadley in 1671. - Ch.: i. Samuel; he removed to Hadley in 1659; m. (1) Hannah-; (2) Sarah, dau. of John Deming, of Wethersfield. He d. in Hadley, Sept. 22, 1689. His widow d. Sept. 29, 1717.2 His eldest son, John, returned to Hartford, m. Sarah Evetts, Apr. 3, 1700, and had descendants in West Hartford and New Hartford.
1 See pedigree in Gen. Reg. xxxix. 69

2 Savage says, 1714 ®1491

Savage says “JOHN, Roxbury, came in 1633, says the ch. [vol. 3, p. 226] rec. with w. Sarah but no ch. He was s. of George of Moulton, Co. Suffolk, freem. 5 Nov 1635, with prefix of respect, suffer. loss of two serv. as Winth. I. 106, tells, rem. soon to Hartford, had Samuel, perhaps only ch., unless Eliz. Seger, to whom by his will of 25 July 1655, he gave £25, tho. not so call. in it, were his d.” ®761

“J. settled in Roxbury, Mass. when he first arrived in this country 1633. He took the oath of fidelity to the government here on 11/5/1633. He represented the town in the General Court in the autumn of 1635 at a place called New Town (now called Cambridge). In the spring of 1640 he removed to Hartford, Conn. with some of the first settlers and made his permanent residence there. His house was on what was afterwards called Wylly’s Hill and was 40 rods west of what afterwards became the Charter Oak. The Congregational Church was erected on the site where his house stood. He was a Lt. in the Militia and frequently held public office. Some writers say he became a Deacon of the church there. When inventoried his estate amounted to 300 pounds,- 14 shillings,- 6d. The property was given to his wife and one child, Samuel, except 25 pounds and some clothing was given to Elizabeth Piper who was supposed to have been a servant in the family. Sarah, the wife, died in Hadley, Mass. on 11/4/1671.” ®8

Page 81   Name: John Moody   Location: Hartford
Invt. œ300-14-06. Taken 6 December, 1655, by Gregory Wolterton, John Barnard, Francis Barnard.
The last Will & Testament of John Moody late of Hartford: I doe make my loving wife Sarah Moody sole Executrix, and I doe wil that halfe of all that I have, booth Land and Stuffe (excepting the Howseold-stuffe, which I leave wholly to my wife), I give to my son Samuel Moody for to have it at the age of twenty fower years. I Will also that Elizabeth Pepper shall have five & twenty pound payd her within a year, and a petticote and a wascote & a payer of shooes; and this and all my debts for to be payd out of the whole.
John Moody.
23 July, 1655. Witness: Gregory Wolterton, John Barnard, Francis Barnard.
Court Record, Page 80--December, 1655: Will Proven.
Elizabeth Pepper maketh oath in this Court that about the yeare Ano 1641 Sarah Glover, the Sister of John Glover of Newtowne in New England, being at Mr. John Moodys howse at Hartford, she desired the said Elizabeth to goe with her to John Skinner of Hartford, which the said Elizabeth did. When the said Elizabeth and Sarah were at John Skinners house the said Sarah asked John Skinner for a debt of œ13 he owed her brother John Glover, & the said John Skinner answered he had noe money as he was engaged to pay, neither would hee get any for the goods he Brought from England; therefore hee was sorry that he had borrowed it of her brother, & soe went away without any money, but the said Skinner promised to pay the sayd œ13 in the best pay he can.
A DIGEST OF THE EARLY CONNECTICUT PROBATE RECORDS.
1650 to 1663.

The Y-DNA of John’s descendants is G-P15. The Y-DNA of William of Newbury’s descendents is R1b1b2. Edmund cannot have been both and so this discrepancy needs to be solved.
http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~rwmoody/dna/y-dna_results.htm

Did he also have a daughter Elizabeth (Pepper) or (Johnson), who married Richard Seager or Robert Pepper, and who was convicted of witchcraft at Hartford in July 1665? (See "The Seager Families of Colonial New England” by C.T. and C. W. Seager. (1978)