AMOS L. MOODY, register and clerk of the chancery court of Colbert county, was born in Franklin county, Ala., January 14, 1835. His parents were Reuben and Nancy A. (Curran) Moody, the former of whom was a native of South Carolina and the latter of Virginia. Reuben Moody came to Alabama about 1819, and located in Franklin county. He was married in Franklin county, and lived there until 1853, when he removed to Arkansas. Two years later he returned to Franklin County, Ala., and continued to reside there until his death, which occurred in 1884. His widow and ten children survive him, five of whom reside in Texas and five in Alabama. He was born in 1811, his wife in 1817, and they were married in 1834. Amos L. Moody was reared on the farm, and worked on the farm and in his father’s blacksmith shop. When not at work he attended school, and, being an apt scholar, secured a good common English education. During the family’s residence in Arkansas, he taught school, and upon returning to Alabama he opened a blacksmith shop at Frankfort, Franklin county, which he ran until the spring of 1862. He then went to work for the confederate government at Adairsville, Ga., and remained there until 1864. Returning to this old shop in Frankfort in 1864, he remained there one year, and in August, 1865, he took the position of clerk in the office of the probate judge in Franklin county, being appointed by Judge Wamble, and he continued to clerk for that judge until the close of 1867, and from that time to the close of 1870 for Judge Anderson. In May, 1870, he was appointed register and clerk of the chancery court of Franklin county, which office he filled until August, 1880, when he was elected probate judge of Franklin county, and served in that office for six years. In November, 1886, he was re-appointed register and clerk of the chancery court of Franklin county, and remained in that office until December 27, 1887, when he removed to Colbert county. On January 3, 1888, he was appointed register and clerk of the chancery court of Colbert county, which office he still holds Mr. Moody was married January 19, 1859, to Miss Emma Douthit, daughter of Rev. James Douthit of Franklin county, Ala. she died April 18, 1880, leaving eleven children. Mr. Moody married February 2, 1881, Miss Marietta Smith, daughter of the widow Elizabeth A. Smith of Colbert county. To this marriage there have been born four children, three of whom survive. Mr. Moody is a member of the Masonic fraternity having joined the lodge of Frankfort in 1865, paying his initiation in Confederate money. He is a member of the royal arch chapter of Tuscumbia. He is a ember of the Knights of Pythias, having joined this order in 1880; also is a member of the uniform rank in said order, and carries a policy of $3,000.

[SOURCE: Memorial Record of Alabama. A concise account of the state’s political, military professional and Industrial progress, together with the personal memoirs of many of its people. In Two Volumes. Illustrated. Brant & Fuller, Madison Wis., 1893. Volume I. pp. 695 – 6.]

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