DL Moody's birth place

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Geo: 42.6958, -72.4533

Editor's NOTE: Normally Glenn proof-read's my blog and does some
major editing, however I am not asking him to do this for me, since he
needs a break. So bear with me if there are misspelled words and the
grammar is incorrect. Thanks for reading.

Also, I've changed the format for the most recent entry to be on top.

This morning, I woke up to the sound of rain. It was raining cats and dogs. A good sign, because the country side was so dry - but actually we were not expecting rain.

After a good breakfast, we left the hotel along a winding road towards Northfield, MA, the birthplace of DL Moody. We first had to enter into NH for a little bit.

We came across a barn built out of license plates. Quite the unusual thing. Note photos.

Once we arrived in Northfield, MA we soon discovered the old WHITE house that DL Moody was born in. And then up beyond the house, on a small hill, were 2 graves.

We drove around the several acerage that surrounded the home.

I copy/paste - a brief summery of DL Moody and the school he founded in Northfield.

D.L. Moody, NMH founder

Dwight
Lyman Moody was among the most well known Christian evangelists of the
19th century, traveling and preaching in the United States and abroad.
He was born in Northfield on Feb. 5, 1837, in a house that still stands
on the Northfield campus. His father died when Dwight was 4 years old.
His mother, Betsey, despite poverty, kept together her family of nine
children. Moody was baptized in a local church and attended school in
the town of Northfield.At
age 17, he left home and moved to Boston to work in his uncle's shoe
store. In 1855, he was "born again." As D.L. himself said: "When God
waked me up...I could not sit still, but I had to go out to preach."
Within the year, he moved to Chicago, once more successfully working in
the shoe store business.In mid-19th-century America, hundreds of
thousands of Americans, along with new immigrants, moved to cities to
reap what they anticipated would be their share in the industrial
revolution. Many were unable to cope with the temptations and
disappointments of urban living. Young Moody felt compelled to preach.
"I went out one Sunday and got hold of 18 ragged boys," he said. "That
was about the happiest Sunday I ever experienced." He started teaching
informal Bible classes in the most ignored and dangerous neighborhoods
of Chicago.Moody's listeners grew in number. His commitment to
evangelism became a full-time occupation. During the 1860s, he preached
to civilians, soldiers, and prisoners; he served as president of the
Chicago YMCA; and he made the first of his many long and famous
evangelical trips. In 1870, Moody met Ira David
Sankey, hymn-singer, song-leader, and composer. Moody needed a singer to
fill the intervals between his sermons. Together Moody and Sankey
expanded and professionalized urban revivalism, campaigning for Christ
in, among other places, England, Scotland, Jerusalem, Ireland, Italy,
Egypt, France, Switzerland, Mexico, and across the United States. When
Moody founded the Northfield Seminary for Young Ladies (1879) and Mount
Hermon School for Boys (1881), he selected students who were talented
but from impoverished backgrounds. They came from all over the world,
from all over America, and from every race.Dwight Lyman Moody
died in Northfield on Dec. 22, 1899. An estimated 3,000 people came to
campus for the funeral. Moody is buried on a hill called Round Top on
the Northfield campus, the site of both his birth and death.from the Website about Northfield, MA

NMH's History

Northfield
Mount Hermon was founded by 19th-century evangelist Dwight Lyman Moody
as two institutions: Northfield Seminary for Young Ladies in 1879 and
Mount Hermon School for Boys in 1881. The schools aimed to educate young
people who had limited access to education because they were poor.
Moody hoped to create generations of committed Christians who would
continue his evangelical efforts.The Bible was the primary
classroom tool in the early days, but religious instruction was
accompanied by a challenging academic program similar to that of other
private secondary schools of the era.Another factor that
distinguished the schools (and continues to do so today) was the manual
labor required of all students. At Northfield, girls worked 10 hours per
week, helping prepare meals or cleaning dormitories. At Mount Hermon,
boys performed janitorial, laundry, kitchen, and farm work. The work
requirement has shrunk over the years (it is now four hours per week),
and while students still help in the dining hall and on NMH's farm, they
perform a variety of other jobs as well.The schools matriculated
students from all races and ethnicities: 16 Native Americans were among
the first 100 students at Northfield, and Mount Hermon's first
graduates included a former slave as well as students from China,
Sweden, England, Ireland, Canada, and Japan. NMH maintains this
commitment to diversity, with students of color making up 19 percent of
the student body and 25 percent coming from other countries.After
Moody's death in 1899, his eldest son, William, continued his father's
work at the schools. The younger Moody pushed for consolidating the two
schools into a single corporation called the Northfield Schools.
Throughout the 20th century, a new Christian view was taking hold,
stressing social justice and good works in place of personal salvation.
Working to find opportunities for students of color, the schools first
established a relationship with the National Scholarship Service and
Fund for Negro Students in the 1940s, then with A Better Chance in the
early 1960s, and for the past 40 years, with Upward Bound.In
1971, Northfield and Mount Hermon became a single coeducational school.
The school consolidated to the Mount Hermon campus in September 2005,
and the Northfield campus was sold in 2009.


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After visiting the burial site, Glenn and I continued in the rain towards Boston. We drove through Holyoke, where Sid Whiting grew up. Then continued on our journey

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