BIOGRAPHY OF MOODY CURRIER of Manchester NH ------------------------------------ Information located at http://www.nh.searchroots.com/Manchester On a web site about GENEALOGY AND HISTORY OF MANCHESTER NEW HAMPSHIRE TRANSCRIBED BY JANICE BROWN Please see the web site for my email contact. ---------------------------------- The original source of this information is in the public domain, however use of this text file, other than for personal use, is restricted without written permission from the transcriber (who has edited, compiled and added new copyrighted text to same). ======================================================== SOURCE: Manchester, A Brief Record of its Past and A Picture of Its Present, including an account of is settlement and its growth as town and city; a history of its schools, churches, societies, banks, post-offices, newspapers and manufactures; a description of its government, police and fire department, public buildings, library, water-works, cemeteries, streets, streams, railways and bridges; a complete list of the selectmen, moderators and clerks of the town and members of the councils, marshals and engineers of the city, with the state of the cote for mayor at each election; the story of its part in the war of the rebellion with a complete list of its soldiers who went ot the war; and sketches of its representative citizens; Manchester N.H.; John B. Clark; 1875 ------------------- page 400 **** MOODY CURRIER **** Moody Currier was born April 22, 1806 at Boscawen NH. He afterwards lived in Dunbarton and Bow, workign on a farm in the summer, going to school in the fall and teaching in the winter. District schools were then kept but six weeks in the year and Mr. Currier acquired all the English studies at home, studying evenings by the light of pitch knots and tallow candles. He fitted for college at Hopkinton Academy and then entered Darmouth College, graduating, together with the Hon. Daniel Clark of this city, in the class of 1834. The succeeding fall he taught school in Concord, and in company with the Hon. Asa Fowler of that city, edited the New Hampshire Literary Gazette. Then he went to Hopkinton and was principal of the academy there for a year, and in 1836 went to Lowell, Mass., to take charge of the high school there, continuing its master until the spring of 1841, when he removed to Manchester [NH]. During his stay at Hopkington and Lowell he had studied law, and, upon coming to this city, he was admitted to the bar and formed a partnership with the Hon. George W. Morrison for the practice of his profession. The Manchester Democrat, a weekly newspaper, was started in 1842 by Kimball & Kidder, and soon afterwards the latter's interest by bought by Morrison & Currier. The latter gave part of his time to editorial labor and later bought Mr. Morrison's fourth of the paper, disposing of his own interest in it not long afteward. His partnership in legal practice with Mr. Morrison was dissolved in 1843, and he pursued his profession independently until 1848, when he became cashier of the old Amoskeag Bank then just organized, and has continued in the banking business ever since. When the Amoskeag Savings Bank was organized in 1852, he was appointed its treasurer and still holds the office. He has been president of the Amoskeag National Bank since its organization in 1864, director of the People's Savings Bank from its formation in 1874, director of the Blodget Edge Tool Company during its existence and president and treasurer of the Amoskeag Axe Company since it succeeded the former in 1862, director of the Manchester Gas-Light Company since 1862, director of the Manchester Mills since its organization in 1874, treasurer of the Concord and Portsmouth Railroad since 1856, treasurer of the Concord Railroad in 1871 and 1872, and is the treasurer of the New England Loan Company. He was clerk of the New Hampshire Senate in 1843 and 1844; was elected a member of that body by the Republicans of the third district in 1856 and 1857, being its president in the latter year, and was elected a councilor by the Republicans in 1860 and 1861. He was the chairman of the war committee of the govenor and council for the final fifteen months of the war and did the chief business of that body, showing great executive ability in raising and equipping troops and starting into life a new military organization. Manchester in particular has reason to be grateful to him for what he did. Mr. Currier has three times married; first Miss Lucretia C. Dustin, December 8, 1836; second, Miss Mary W. Kidder, September 5, 1847; third, Miss Hannah A. Slade, November 16, 1869. He has had three children, of which one survives--Charles M., teller of the Amoskeag National Bank in this city. Mr. Currier is a marked man. He does his own thinking and has carved out his own success. He has built up and now manages the largest banking institutions in the state, and his great reputation with the outside world is justly that of a financier. But his ability in that line is equaled, if not excelled, by his remarkable scholarship. Educated for a profession and once a teacher, lawyer and editor, he has found time, in the midst of the busy life he has since led, to preserve and strengthen the tastes of a lover of art and literature. Well versed in the eaxct sciences, keeping pace with modern thought in art, science and religion, perfectly at home among the Latin and Greek autahors, he has educated himself to read French at sight, is familiar with German, Italian and Spanish, and has written enough fugitive pieces of poetry for his own recreation to fill a volume. It is remarkable to find literary tastes and financial capacity united, both in such light degree, and we know of no other business man in the state who is so fine a scholar. (end)