A Brief History of the Moody Building and William H. H. Moody Welcome to the historic Moody building located at Opera House Square, formally known as Tremont Square in downtown Claremont. The structure was built by the famous Boston architect Hira Beckwicth in 1892 and purchased by William Moody in 1895, it was run as one of the states most prominent hotels through the 1960's. Please contact us if you have Moody Building or House memorabilia, furnishing and architectural features for sale or call (603) 477-8936.
Hotel Claremont Block William H. H. Moody Highland View-William H. H. Moody's Place	Pictures and text taken from: HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF CLAREMONT NEW HAMPSHIRE For a period of one hundred and thirty years from 1764 to 1894 by Otis F.R. Waite Published by the Authority of the Town Grant of the Town.-Division into Shares.-Page 9 By the proprietors' book of records, it appears that on October 26, A.D. 1764, a township six miles square, containing twenty-four thousand acres, and named Claremont, was granted to Josiah Willard, Samuel Ashley, and sixty-eight others.  The name of the town was derived, from the county seat of Lord Clive, a celebrated English general, who was styled the founder of the British Empire to India. Claremont-Page 166 Being in the Connecticut river valley this is one of the best farming towns in New Hampshire, and her farmers are generally intelligent, industrious, and independent.  Her large village and extensive manufactories furnish a home market for the more of every kind of farm produce than is raised. Highland View Farm-Page 175 In 1877, William H. H. Moody, a native of the town, by reason of impaired health, caused by too close application to business as the head of the shoe-manufacturing firm of Moody, Estabrook & Andersons of Nashua, and having acquired a considerable fortune, retired temporarily from the firm and turned his attention to the restoration of his health by out-door-exercise.  He returned to Claremont, bought what had been known as the Mann farm of eighty-seven acres on the Charlestown Road, a little more than a mile south of the village, and immediately began the erection of fine buildings, upon high ground, overlooking the village, commanding a view of a large extent of surrounding country, and improving his land by ditching and other means employed by good farmers with ample means.  The house is large, substantial, and elegant-two stories with Mansard roof, wide piazzas and verandas on three sides, and elaborately finished and decorated inside.  Near to it is a neat cottage for the superintendent of the farm and stables.  The buildings, about a hundred rods west of Charlestown road, are reached by a winding avenue on either side of which is a row of rock maple trees.  The grounds in the front of the house are ornamented by evergreen and other trees and shrubs, giving the place a picturesque appearance.
Having a liking for horses, Mr. Moody turned his attention to breeding blooded stock for trotters and gentlemen's driving horses, and effected barns, sheds and other buildings for that purpose.  There are the three barns, one hundred by fifty feet, and one hundred by thirty, and forty by eighty, and twenty-five box stalls, under the same roof, each twelve by fifteen feet, well-lighted and aired for brood mares.  At the south side of the road to Claremont Junction, tow miles from the village, he has a park of thirty acres, with a tight board fence, eight feet high on the highway: stables for the accommodation of thirty horses, with running water at convenient points, and a track on which the horses are exercised by careful and experienced drivers.  It is named Highland View Park.  The track is sixty-five feet wide, the ends thrown up one inch to the foot; twenty thousand cart loads of earth were moved in grading of it, and it is as level, hard, and perfect as money and skill engineering could make it. Mr. Moody's stock horses are among the best blooded animals in the country, with undoubted pedigrees.  In 1893 he had in all -stock horses, brood mares, and colts of all ages - one hundred and fifty head.  His ambition is to have not only the most complete and best equipped horse breeding establishment in New England but the best blooded stock on the country.  He is at work with this end constantly in view, and is not far from its accomplishments. From time to time Mr. Moody had added to his original purchases several different tracts, some of which have good buildings upon them, and has now six hundred acres, all connected.   This land has been vastly improved by blind ditching and tile draining, removing all loose stones, great and small, and generous fertilizing.  A notable thing about he place is a all on the west side of the Charlestown road, extending from his south line to his north line, at Draper Corner, made with stones taken from the land.  Many of the bowlders (spelled this way in the book) were too large to be removed by ordinary means without being broken up or split.  This being done they made good face wall, which was skillfully laid.  It is four feet wide on the top, is sunk into the ground two or three feet, and six feet high above the surface. To supply his buildings with an abundance of pure water, with head sufficient to carry it forcibly to desired points, in 1892. Mr. Mood sunk into a hedge back of the higher than the top of his house, an artesian well six inches in diameter and one hundred feet deep.  The water is forced into a large reservoir by means of a pump attached to a Gem wheel, operated by a windmill, and from this reservoir in pipes to places where it is desired. After a few years Mr. Moody almost wholly recovered the health and vigor of his early days, and resumed his former place in the shoe firm, from the profits of which he derives an income sufficient to enable him to carry forward his Claremont projects.  The most of his time winters he spends in Boston, where the first has an office and warehouse, and the summers he spend upon his farm, going occasionally to Boston.  He has an efficient and trusty superintendent here who attends to everything in his absence.
The Historic Moody Building, Then and Now