“Memories of an Ancient House” by Austin Moody, December 1928
“Today I am approaching my ninety-first birthday. I am reminded of the Thanksgiving Days of my youth. They were passed in the old, red house at Moody’s Corner, South Hadley, Mass. It has a right to do so. For two hundred and fifty years the Moodys of my line were born in this house, eight generations of the, and I am the last one. The house was larger than it looks in the accompanying picture. Three of the rooms were 40 feet square. There were 7 fire places. One of them was built for 12 foot logs. There were 2 brick ovens, each capable of holding 60 pies at a baking. At Thanksgiving time, the relatives gathered; I had 40 cousins who lived near by. We feasted and frolicked together at our home. In preparing for this, the old red house was a busy place where mother made applesauce. She made a half barrel full and other food was prepared on the same scale. It is also interesting to me to remember how the large stone came to be in the picture. We were getting out some stones for a building where this and others like this in the picture were uncovered. It bears the track of what Pres. Hitchcock of Amherst said was an enormous bird. The tracks are about 5 feet apart. The toes must have been about as large as my wrist. The stone was broken and pieces with two tracks each are in Amherst, Yale and Dartmouth College museums. These years have been wonderful that I have lived through to now - 71 of them with my wife who was also born in the Connecticut Valley. I am glad to have lived during these 90 years of our country’s history, and to be here now.”