Loring Moody

Loring Moody

Massachusetts Historical Society

Quick Facts

Significance:

Boston Vigilance Committee member, abolitionist

Place of Birth:

Orleans, Massachusetts

Date of Birth:

1814

Place of Death:

Malden, Massachusetts

Date of Death:

February 24, 1883

Place of Burial:

Malden, Massachusetts

Cemetery Name:

Forest Dale Cemetery

Loring Moody dedicated himself to the abolitionist movement in Eastern Massachusetts as a key administrator for many anti-slavery organizations. 

Born in 1814 to parents Samuel and Sarah (Rogers) Moody, Loring Moody lived on Cape Cod, where he grew active in the abolitionist movement. He worked full-time organizing for the antislavery movement. He served as general agent for the Boston and Harwich conventions of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, as well as the secretary for the Barnstable County Anti-Slavery Society.¹ 

Moody worked diligently to secure finances for the antislavery cause in his administrative positions. In The Liberator, he published tracts frequently to inspire others to donate and join the efforts: 

We are laboring to break the yoke of bondage from the necks of our own countrymen. Thus commencing a series of benevolent efforts, which shall widen and extend their influence, until the oppressed of every land and clime shall enjoy the blessings of liberty. A single dollar given to this cause may do much towards the attainment of this glorious end…”²

Additionally, Moody accompanied abolitionist Jonathan Walker for his tour of antislavery lectures. In 1844, Walker received a branding on his hand after helping freedom seekers escape slavery in the South. Moody also traveled to towns in the greater Boston area to lecture himself in the years that followed. He worked closely with others, such as Charles Lenox Remond, to organize these antislavery meetings across Massachusetts.³

As a strong opponent of the new Fugitive Slave Law, Moody joined the 1850 Boston Vigilance Committee, an organization dedicated to assisting freedom seekers coming to Boston on the Underground Railroad. While Moody appears on Austin Bearse’s doorman’s list, his direct contributions to the organization remain unknown.⁴

Moody “followed other reformatory movements,” in addition to abolition, including women’s suffrage; for instance, in 1850, he attended the first National Women’s Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts. Moody also supported animal rights and children’s rights movements in his later years.⁵ 

Moody continuously visioned a better society through social reform. However, he eventually became interested in the harmful theory of eugenics, the belief that a society should improve itself by preventing certain groups from having children. Eugenicists targeted people with disabilities, those incarcerated, people of color, and members of the poorer classes. Moody supported this discriminatory theory that misused genetics and made unfounded scientific claims to address societal issues. In 1880, Moody proposed the idea of an “Institute of Hereditary” in Boston to study eugenics. While Moody passed away only a few years later, his work and interest in eugenics shows the prejudiced, contradictory, and dangerous movement many reformers entertained in an effort towards social progress.⁶ 

Moody died in 1883 in Malden, Massachusetts. His remains are interred in the Forest Dale Cemetery.⁷

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Footnotes

1. “Barnstable County A.S. Society,” The Liberator, February 1, 1850, 3; The Liberator, February 5, 1847, 22; Loring Moody,” Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/276632151/loring-moody; “Recent Deaths,” Boston Evening Transcript, February 26, 1883, 1; “Essex County,” The Liberator, October 9, 1846, 3. 
2. “The Agency Fund,” The Liberator, October 9, 1846, 3. 
3. The Liberator, February 17, 1854, 3; “Anti-Slavery Lectures,” The Liberator, July 26, 1850, 3; “Notice,” The Liberator, January 3, 1851, 3; Alvin F. Oickle, Jonathan Walker, the Man With the Branded Hand, (Everett: Lorelli Slater Publisher, 1998), 87, 127, 178, Jonathan Walker, the man with the branded hand : an [sic] historical biography : Oickle, Alvin F : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive.
4. Among other duties, Bearse watched the door at committee meetings and only allowed known members to enter.  His “Doorman’s List” has more people listed as members than the official broadside published by the Vigilance Committee. See, Austin Bearse, Reminiscences of Fugitive Slave Law Days in Boston, (Boston: Warren Richardson, 1880, Dean Grodzins, "Constitution or No Constitution, Law or No Law: The Boston Vigilance Committees, 1841-1861," in Matthew Mason, Katheryn P. Viens, and Conrad Edick Wright, eds., Massachusetts and the Civil War: The Commonwealth and National Disunion (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2015), 73, n.57. 
5. “Recent Deaths,” Boston Evening Transcript, February 26, 1883, 1. 
6. “Recent Deaths,” Boston Evening Transcript, February 26, 1883, 1; Harriet Jane Hanson Robinson, Massachusetts in the Woman Suffrage Movement, (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1883), 212, Massachusetts in the Woman Suffrage Movement: A General, Political, Legal and Legislative ... : Harriet Jane Hanson Robinson : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive.  
7. Gertrude C. Davenport, “The Eugenics Movement,” in The Independent, January 18, 1912, 147; A. E. Hamilton, “Pioneers in Eugenics,” Journal of Heredity, Volume 5, Issue 8, August 1914, Pages 370–372, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.jhered.a107899; Harvard Countway Library, “Loring Moody,” accessed December 4, 2025, Loring Moody · Galton's Children · OnView. 
8. “Loring Moody,” Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/276632151/loring-moody.