About Deason Hunt and His Moody Brick Wall
I am a retired journalism teacher who sponsored high school newspapers and yearbooks for 35 years in East and Southeast Texas and taught photography and desktop publishing. I was an English-Journalism and History major in college so I taught history for five years. I also did some stringing and some part-time reporting for area daily and weekly newspapers and wrote news releases for my schools, school districts, church, and organizations. I have always had an interest in the story of our country and, ultimately, my ancestors, and I began researching my own family about 1970 working on it as time permitted while teaching. After I retired in June 2000, at the urging (and capable assistance) of cousins, I undertook the finishing of research on my Hunt family and writing and publishing in October 2003 the family history of Thomas Hunt Sr. and wife Lucy and their descendants.
I am currently working on a number of family research projects which I hope to publish in the next few years including my Moody and Wingate family histories and a book on my ancestors who served in the Civil War. At the top of my list is the Moody family history.
My 89-year-old mother is Ozie Mae Moody who still supplies me family information. Her father was Fred D. Moody, the son of Joel A. Moody. All of us in these four generations were born, reared, and live or lived in East Texas. Joel's father, however, we had little information about.
Thomas B. Moody arrived in Texas before 1860 when he was listed on the Nacogdoches County census with wife Pricy and son Joel A. age 1. Thomas' calculated birth date was ca 1832 in North Carolina. A marriage license in nearby Rusk County dated November 28, 1857 was for a Thomas Moody and Priscilla Acrey. In March 1862, Thomas enlisted in Company H, 17th Texas Cavalry Regiment, CSA and marched off to nearby Smith County and on to Arkansas. A later company muster roll listed his name and noted "died Arkansas 6/ 21, 1862."
When I asked about my family, the only stories I was told were (1) of the Joel's father was about him mounting his horse and riding off to never been seen again and (2) that after the war a brother to Thomas had visited Nacogdoches to check up on Thomas' family. A cousin added to the story that the man was from Kansas or Missouri. That was all I knew about my Moody family connections until the cousin found among family existing papers a hand-written latter ca 1890 from Kansas from a cousin named Anna Moody naming the members of Thomas' family.
A census search of Kansas moody families turned up a Joel Moody and wife Gilly and children named in the letter. Censuses of 1870 and 1880 confirmed more names in the letter. Since their data indicated North Carolina births, there I searched and found a marriage bond in Chatham County North Carolina for a Joel Moody and Gilly Moody (both with same surname) in 1819 with Riley Moody BM. In 1820, Joel Moody was enumerated in Chatham County with one child. Ages fit the known ages of Joel and Gilly and oldest son Andrew on later censuses, and the other Joel Moody of Chatham County (William's son) was in Georgia by the 1820 census. Later, I would find Joel again in 1830 and 1850 censuses in Guilford County, North Carolina. On the 1850 Guilford census, the birth state listed and also the county: Chatham County for both Joel and Gilly.
While searching, I came across a descendant of Riley moody who posted a list of the children of Riley Moody which she received from her mother but which was a list written down by her grandmother, herself a granddaughter of Riley Moody. One of the names was Joel.
My research brick wall is this: who were the parents of Joel and Gilly Moody. I have a clue but no evidence about Joel. I have no clue about Gilly. Information I have received indicates that Joel had a brother Elisha who lived in Chatham County, North Carolina. Also, Joel's daughter, Permelia Moody, married a cousin James F. Moody who had a brother Charles Moody in Chatham County. Trying to find the connections of all these people, lead me to research all the Moodys in Chatham (and then Randolph) counties in the hope that I could narrow down the choices for the possible parents of Joel and Gilly.
That was the genesis of this web site.
Deason Hunt, 2003