Description of Historic Place

The Rev. John & Sarah Moody House is a one-and-a-half storey Gothic Revival style house of wood construction built around 1855 and moved a block south of its original location in 1962. It is located on Forest Street, near the central business district and the waterfront of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. Municipal heritage designation applies to the house and its residential lot.

Heritage Value

The Rev. John and Sarah Moody house is valued for its historical associations with the Moody and Farish families, which both figured very prominently in Yarmouth’s history. It is also valued for its Gothic Revival architecture and the unusual elements which set it apart from others of the style.

This Gothic Revival style house was built around 1855 for Rev. John Thomas Tidmarsh Moody, Rector of Holy Trinity Parish from 1846 to 1883, and his wife, Sarah Bond Farish, a daughter of Dr. Henry Greggs Farish, one of the principal physicians in the County at the time. Sarah’s father had given her the lot of land where this house was built as an advance on his estate about a year prior to his death. The house remained in the family until 1977.

From 1877 through 1896, one of the Moody’s sons, Dr. James C. Moody, resided and had his medical offices here. He was succeeded in ownership by his cousin, Dr. George W. T. Farish, whose home and medical offices were also here until 1948. The property was later inherited by Dr. George Farish's daughter, who had the house moved a block south from its original Main Street location in 1962, to save it from expropriation and demolition.

The Gothic Revival architecture of this house is unusual in that its three bay facade is not symmetrical. The front cross gable and the front entrance are off-centre toward the left (east) side of the facade. The house is one-and-a-half stories, of wood frame construction with clapboard cladding. The double hung sash windows have 12-over-8 glazing in the first storey and 6-over-6 glazing in the upper storey; all except the back windows have moulded “dog-eared” labels, as does the front entrance, which also has sidelights and transom lights. Other unusual elements are the corner mouldings and the quatrefoil windows in the peaks of the gables.

Source: Registered Heritage Property files, Town of Yarmouth, NS.

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements of the Rev. John & Sarah Moody House include:

- location close to the central business district and the waterfront
- large, well landscaped, residential lot
- set well back from road
- proximity to other houses of similar scale
- proximity to four other municipally registered heritage properties

The character-defining elements of the Gothic Revival style architecture of the John & Sarah Moody House include:

- wood frame construction
- clapboard cladding
- double hung sash windows
- “dog-eared” window labels
- one storey cutaway bay window in west end
- one-and-a-half stories
- rectangular massing
- off-centre front cross gable
- steeply pitched gable roof
- off-centre entrance in an asymmetrical three bay facade
- quatrefoil windows in end gables