Dr. Robert C. Moody and Dr. William R. Raum of Shippensburg

In May 1828, Dr. James Patterson Henderson¹ set out on horseback from Western Pennsylvania to visit his relatives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He kept a journal filled with details of the places he saw and the people he met. As the editor of his journal states, Henderson “tells of the State Capitol in Harrisburg. He describes James Buchanan, then a young lawyer at Lancaster. He sees his first town clock and first billiard table…He visits a militia drill…a Dunkard immersion, and he never misses an opportunity to flirt with women.”²

Henderson’s route took him through Mechanicsburg and Carlisle, which he described, and on May 28, Henderson reached Shippensburg. He wrote:

“Shippensburg. 20 miles from Carlisle. This town is built principally on the highway and stands on the sides of a small hill, on the summit of which the turnpike--the broadway of Shippensburg—runs in an obtuse angle. The town is a mile in length and the houses removed from the heart of it far indeed from rich or elegant. The heart itself forms but a very paltry exception to this general character. There are 3 or 4 good churches in the town: Catholic, Lutheran, Presbyterian and one for the Methodists now building…The population of the place I heard estimated at 1,600. The business is mercantile, mechanical and innkeeping with a few exceptions. These consist of gentlemen of the liberal professions, who I think are here unusually crowded.

“I saw the shew-boards of several lawyers and physicians and among the rest those of my old acquaintances as Moody and Rhaum. They are in partnership and the latter has married a sister of the former. I understood their practice was not very arduous, nor extensive. They were wild dogs at college and no doubt regret, when too late, their idleness and dissipation. Their complete failure and ruin I would not be surprised at. The course is natural and easily trodden.”

The men Henderson was writing about were Robert Crawford Moody and William Rippy Raum. The three men attended Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, Pennsylvania. Moody and Raum in the Class of 1823 and Henderson in the Class of 1825.

William Rippy Raum, son of John Raum and Catharine Rippy, was born in Shippensburg on May 2, 1805. Both the Raum’s and the Rippy’s were old Shippensburg families. According to a listing of Washington and Jefferson College students, Raum was a student with Dr. Finley of Shippensburg and Baltimore, and he practiced medicine in Charlestown, West Virginia from 1830 to 1863.³

Dr. Raum married Elizabeth, the daughter of Dr. Rev. John Moody of Middle Spring Presbyterian Church on January 25, 1827,⁴ making him a brother-in-law of Robert C. Moody. Soon after Henderson’s visit in 1828, Raum and Moody dissolved their partnership, and Raum moved to Charlestown, West Virginia where he and his wife raised ten children, and Dr. Raum practiced until his death on September 17, 1863.

Robert Crawford Moody, born near Shippensburg in 1805,⁵ was the eldest son of Dr. Rev. John Moody of Shippensburg and Elizabeth Crawford his wife.⁶ He was a medical student with Dr. Finley in Shippensburg and practiced in Newville from 1825 to 1838.⁷ Dr. Moody did not fare as well as his brother-in-law. He petitioned the court for insolvency in August 1833. He said that his assets included medical books worth $20, uncollected fees on his books of $50-60, and $10 worth of furniture. He gave the reason for his insolvency as “disappointment in professional business and non-payment of money due me for professional services.” ⁸

Dr. Moody never married and died at the age of 33 on May 3, 1838. He is buried in the cemetery at Middle Spring Presbyterian Church.