G. C. Moody Biography


	This biography appears on pages 605-609 in "History of South 
	Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. I (1904) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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	An engraving and the signature of G. C. Moody faces page 605


HON. GIDEON C. MOODY The strong, true men of a people are always public 
benefactors. Their usefulness in the immediate and specific labors they 
perform can be defined by metes and bounds. The good they do through 
the forces they put in motion, and through the inspiration of their 
presence and example, is immeasurable by any finite gauge or  standard 
of value. The death of any one of such  men is a public calamity, 
because by it the country  loses not only his active energy but the 
stimulus and fecundating power of his personal influence.  There is, 
however, some compensation for this loss  in the memory of his 
services, the effect of his  example and the continuing fruitfulness of 
the  activities he quickened into life. The late Gideon C. Moody, of 
South Dakota, was such a man. To epitomize his life and character 
within the limits  which this work allows is impossible to mortal 
utterance. The stalwart proportions of his living  presence are vividly 
realized by the void his death  has made. But less than most men 
intellectually his equal does he need the voice of eulogy. The  
clearness of his purposes, the soundness of his judgment his ample 
sweep of vision. his tireless  activity his indomitable will his great 
achievements,  his unending uprightness of character, have  impressed 
"the very age and body of the time!"  making his life a force that 
cannot die.

    Senator Moody was born at Cortland. New York on October 16, 1832. 
and was the son of Stephen  and Charlotte M. (Curtis) Moody:, of that 
state. He  received an academic education and then began the study of 
law at Syracuse. In 1852. at  the age of twenty, he removed to Indiana, 
where he  was admitted to the bar and entered upon the  practice of his 
profession at New Albany. In 1854  after less than two years of 
practice, such was his  force of character and professional promise, 
that he  was elected prosecuting attorney of Floyd county. A  little 
later he joined an organization of young  Republicans in the state, and 
became prominent and  very active in the efforts they made to secure 
the  election of Hon. Oliver P. Morton as governor. It was discovered, 
however that Mr. Morton's personal  unpopularity made it inexpedient to 
place him at the  head of the ticket, and he was nominated for  
lieutenant governor, Hon. Henry S. Lane being  named as the party 
candidate for governor. The  popularity of Mr. Lane and the effective 
campaigning  of the young Republicans secured the triumph of the  
ticket and a Republican legislature at the ensuing  election, Mr. Moody 
himself being chosen a member  of the lower house in the face of a 
normal Democratic  majority of five hundred in his district. At the 
legislative session which followed Governor Lane  was elected United 
States senator, and Morton, the  idol of the young Republicans of the 
state, became  governor. The doctrine of state rights had many  ardent 
advocates in the legislature, and the feeling  against the course of 
the federal administration  towards the South, which was then rapidly 
tending  to secession, was so strong that the debates became  
exceedingly acrimonious and personal. A member named Heffron made a 
bitter attack on Governor Morton, which was replied to in  such 
scathing terms by Mr. Moody that he was challenged by Heffron to fight 
a duel. It was  arranged that the encounter should take place at 
Covington, Kentucky, and Colonel Milroy, who  afterward became a major 
general in the United States army, was chosen as Mr. Moody's second.  
While crossing the Ohio to the place of meeting they were arrested and 
each was fined five hundred dollars, Mr. Heffron failing to put in an 
appearance. In 1861, soon after the beginning of the Civil war, Messrs. 
Milroy and Moody raised the Ninth Indiana Infantry, of which Mr. Milroy 
was made colonel,  Mr. Moody becoming captain of Company G. On November 
15, 1862, he was promoted colonel, and some little time afterward was 
mustered out of the service in order that he might accept the post of 
captain in the Nineteenth United States Infantry, a command in which he 
served until the  spring of 1864, the greater portion of the time on 
the staff of Gen. George H. Thomas. In May, 1864,  his term of 
enlistment having expired, and it being apparent that the war was 
nearing its end, he  resigned his commission in the army and was 
appointed by the secretary of war to proceed to  Dakota and 
superintendend the construction of a wagon road from Sioux City to Fort 
Randall. In  this work he employed to a very large extent the 
Scandinavian farmers numerously populating the southeastern counties of 
the territory and so arranged the work of construction that they were 
able to give their farm duties proper attention and build the road 
during the seasons when farm work was slack, making this arrangement at 
a considerable sacrifice of his own interests. Moreover, having learned 
by careful calculation that the road could be built for much less than 
the appropriation, he voluntarily. paid the workmen almost double the 
ruling price for men and teams. This action on his part brought him 
severe criticism from the war department, and delayed for many years 
the approval of his accounts and the payment of his commission on the 
expenditures. But it endeared him to the people of the southeastern 
counties, and made the Scandinavian farmers, who were at that time of 
very limited means and had a hard struggle to improve their farms and 
live without outside assistance, his firm and faithful friends to the 
end of his life. They were always with him to a man in politics and in 
business, and held him ever in the highest regard. When he crossed the 
Mississippi to make a new home in the farther West, he at first 
contemplated locating in western Iowa, but instead he settled at 
Yankton and began there an active practice of his profession. He also 
took a very earnest interest in political affairs and was elected to 
the territorial house of representatives, of which he was chosen 
speaker, and to which four years later he was re-elected. In 1878 he 
was appointed associate justice of the territorial supreme court by 
President Hayes on the recommendation of the Republican organization of 
the territory and that of Senator Conklin, of New York. He was assigned 
to the Black Hills district and remained on the bench until 1884, when 
he resigned to become general counsel for the Homestake Mining Company 
and its associate corporations, in which capacity he served until his 
death. To the judicial ermine he lent dignity and distinction in his 
protracted and able service, and he was known afterward as one of the 
leading corporation lawyers of the whole Northwest. When he retired 
from the bench he at once took charge of the legal business of the 
Homestake Mining Company, and soon found himself again in the whirlpool 
of territorial politics, a stage on which he was one of the star actors 
until 1891. Samuel McMasters, a very shrewd and practical Irishman, the 
superintendent of the mining company, who could not read and was unable 
to write anything but his name, besought the Judge to take charge of 
his campaign as a candidate for territorial delegate to the United 
States house of representatives. The canvass that followed made the 
Judge a large number of very bitter personal enemies and gave him a 
continual struggle from that time until his final retirement from 
politics to retain his supremacy in the western half of the state. In 
the broad field of national politics his capacity, breadth of view and 
knowledge of men and of affairs secured him a position of commanding 
influence. He was a delegate to the Republican national conventions of 
1868, 1888 and 1892. In the convention of 1888 he was chairman of the 
delegation from the Dakotas and made a speech which gained the 
admission of ten delegates instead of the three usually allowed the 
territory. As the personal friend of Senator Platt, of New York, he got 
advance inside information of all the important maneuvers in the 
convention, and it was said by the party leaders that the solid vote of 
South Dakota at a critical time was largely instrumental in bringing 
about the nomination of President Harrison, with whom he was on terms 
of intimate friendship and whose candidacy he warmly espoused. He was a 
prominent and influential member of the South Dakota constitutional 
conventions of 1883 and 1885, and was also a member of the Committee 
appointed to draft and present to congress a memorial for the division 
of Dakota and its admission to the Union as two states. Under the 
constitution of 1885 he was elected United States senator, but congress 
did not recognize the movement as valid, yet the senate allowed him the 
privilege of admission to the floor. In 1889, after the enabling act 
was passed by congress, the constitution of 1885 was again adopted and 
he was again elected to the United States senate, but in the 
classification he drew the short term of two years. Then in 1891 he was 
defeated by the great Populist upheaval. In 1901 he was appointed by 
Governor Herreid a member of the commission of three to codify the laws 
of the state provided for by an act of the legislature. In the work of 
the commission the code of civil procedure. justice and probate codes 
were assigned to him, and his service in this connection was the last 
of a public nature that he rendered.  

	Judge Moody was married on September 21 1855. at Spafford, 
Onondaga county, New York, to Miss Helen Eliot, and they became the 
parents of one daughter and four sons. The oldest, Mrs. Helen E. 
Dickinson, now lives at Los Angeles, California; Charles C. is editor 
of the Sturgis (South Dakota) Record; Burdette, a civil engineer. was 
for many years chief engineer for the Homestake Mining Company, and is 
now with the California Kings Gold Mines Company at Picacho, 
California; and James C. and Warner, who are lawyers, have succeeded to 
their father's law practice at Deadwood. The Judge never joined any of 
the fraternal orders so numerous and popular among men except the Grand 
Army of the Republic, in which he was a member of the local post at 
Deadwood. He died at Los Angeles, California, on March 17, 1904, aged 
seventy-one years.  

        One of the most forcible and impressive elements in the 
elevated character of this courageous pioneer, eminent jurist, 
prominent politician, conservative civic force and high-minded citizen, 
was his inflexible integrity. This is well illustrated in the unwritten 
history of the great Ophir vs. Gopher mining suit that was tried before 
him as presiding judge at Deadwood in the first year of his service on 
the bench. The suit involved property worth several hundred thousand 
dollars, and a great array of legal talent was engaged on each side, 
including Harry I. Thornton, of San Francisco, H. J. Bennett, of Salt 
Lake, Judge D. Corson, now a member of the supreme court of South 
Dakota, Judge D. McLaughlin and Col. W. R. Steele, besides a number of 
lesser lights. The litigants on one side were apprehensive of losing 
their case, and four or five of their leading men determined to secure 
a decision at any cost. One after another was selected to approach the 
Judge, and was fortified for the assault on judicial honor with a 
convenient package carefully concealed in an inside pocket. And one 
after another returned to his confederates with the report that he was 
afraid to broach the subject to the Judge. They then concluded to 
employ for the purpose a resident of Montana who had acquired a 
reputation for success in such work. He essayed the task, but after 
wandering around Deadwood and carefully feeling his way for about a 
month, he too declined to make the attempt. A final effort was then 
made by retaining one of Judge Moody's former law partners, who was 
summoned by letter from his home in North Dakota. When informed of the 
nature of the service required of him, he threw up his hands in dismay 
and exclaimed: "My God, men! do you expect me to tackle that man on any 
such proposition? Why, I should be in the penitentiary in forty-eight 
hours. If that is what you got me here for I might as well leave for 
home on the coach tomorrow." And he did leave next day. The suit 
proceeded to a conclusion and the conspirators lost the decision. One 
of them, who was the writer's informant on the subject, says: "Judge 
Moody went on in the even tenor of his way, and to his death was 
oblivious of the temptation which had been prepared for him." During 
the progress of this case Mr. Thornton, the greatest mining lawyer the 
West ever produced, in speaking to his associates, said of Judge Moody: 
"Gentlemen, there is one of the greatest and brainiest judges I ever 
tried a case before." In politics, a pursuit wherein the ordinary rules 
of honesty and straightforwardness are supposed to be usually much 
relaxed, he was the same inflexibly upright man as on the bench and in 
private life. He treated everybody squarely and insisted that his 
friends do the same when working in his interest, immediately and 
sharply repudiating any attempt on their part to do otherwise. In the 
memorable contest of 1891, when for several weeks daily ballots were 
taken in the legislature for a United States senator, and the Judge 
needed but one vote to secure his re-election, it is known and his 
family have the proofs that more than one member of the body offered to 
desert the opposition and make his election certain for a 
consideration. And, amazing as it may seem, two different propositions 
were made in writing and signed by legislators, offering to sell out to 
him. Some of his zealous friends brought the matter to his attention. 
Without the slightest hesitation and with all the force he could 
command he told them that if one dollar were used in buying a vote for 
him he would refuse to qualify for the office or accept it, and more, 
that he would assist in prosecuting both the man offering the money and 
the man accepting it. And yet he cared nothing for money, but was 
unhappy as long as he had any in his pocket. He never manifested any 
desire to accumulate wealth. At no time in his whole career did he keep 
a set of books. No ledger or day book ever adorned his  desk, and since 
his decease his family have never found a single charge for services 
during all his fifty years of practice.  

        As a lawyer and practitioner at the bar Judge Moody was 
remarkably successful. His success was so great, in fact, that it has 
been a matter of universal comment, not only among members of the bar, 
but by people generally. A close study of his professional 
characteristics will explain this. In the first place he was thoroughly 
equipped for his profession by natural aptitude, by diligent study and 
by judicious observation. In the next he gave every case his most 
careful and searching attention. A client calling on him for advice was 
as thoroughly cross examined as to the facts in his case as if he were 
in court and the questions were asked by the opposing counsel. The fee, 
no matter how large, was no temptation to him if from his knowledge of 
the case his client had not the moral and the legal right on his side. 
On the very few occasions when he was deceived by his client and went 
into court with an unworthy case, he returned the money paid him for a 
fee with a severe rebuke for the deception, and thereafter he held the 
client in the utmost contempt and no argument could convince him that 
the man was honest. One of the sources of his remarkable success as 
general counsel for the Homestake Mining Company was this attribute of 
his nature. 

        On questions in his department of this great corporation his 
judgment was supreme, and it was almost universally recognized in the 
community that prospective litigants who had claims against the company 
would have no difficulty in securing a settlement if they could 
convince Judge Moody of the justice of their claims from either a moral 
or a legal point of view, even his enemies conceding that while he was 
at the head of the company's legal department courts were largely 
unnecessary so far as it was concerned; as, while his fidelity to its 
interests was one of the strongest kind, the claimant could always get 
fair treatment at his hands without the aid of the courts. This was so 
generally understood that remarkably little new litigation fell to the 
lot of the company during the last fifteen years of his connection with 
it. 

        In private life he was a model man and greatly endeared himself 
to his friends and his family. To his friends he was the 
personification of fidelity. No consideration and no influence that 
could be brought to bear could induce him to desert them or waver in 
the slightest degree in his allegiance to them. It was this that welded 
his friendships, which once formed were never severed; and this, in its 
way, also embittered his enemies. In his family he was all purity and 
devotion. He was a delightful conversationalist, and to his children he 
was a companion as well as a guide, an example as well as an 
inspiration, their warmest friend and their most judicious counselor. 
Impervious to fulsome flattery, he was vet highly appreciative of kind 
things said of him, and good-humoredly tolerant of criticisms. These 
traits overflowed the boundaries of his domestic life and made him 
popular wherever he was known. It was said of him that if he could get 
a few minutes of close communion with an enemy, he could almost 
invariably change the enmity into an undying friendship.