He spent 60 years in Castle Rock, delivering mail for three decades and quietly amassing a timber fortune that benefits numerous charities and local schools — but John Moffitt remains a mystery millionaire.
Moffitt, who died in 1989, lived a frugal but eccentric life, caring for a pack of dogs, hoarding food at times and never throwing anything out. He loved gardening, playing the piano, collecting antiques and writing poetry. He lived in "a shack" for decades, rarely spending anything on himself.
If you were poor, or sick, Moffitt would help. In return, he wanted anonymity. Charities sometimes lost his support after asking for more money or disclosing his involvement.
His John Moffitt Foundation now contributes to 13 charities or organizations annually, including all Cowlitz County public schools. In just two examples, his money helps Castle Rock children read and provides emergency money for dialysis patients throughout Washington and Oregon. In the past decade, the foundation has distributed more than $1.3 million.
Yet few people know much about Moffitt. Even relatives only knew part of his story, never hearing of the abusive, poverty-stricken childhood that led to his life of quiet philanthropy.
"He was just a shy man," said attorney Chris Roubicek, who worked with Moffitt before his death and now represents his estate. "He didn’t wear his philanthropy on his sleeve."
"We were shocked at how much he had," said nephew Don Parham of Portland, recalling how the family reacted after learning Moffitt was worth close to $8 million at his death. "But him creating a foundation? That didn’t surprise me any. He was a good man."
John Hardy Moffitt was born Feb. 5, 1897, in Portland, the second child and only son of John H. and Mary E. (Gentry) Moffitt, according to a short biography the late Castle Rock lawyer Frank Hallett wrote for the foundation.
Moffitt’s father, a railroad conductor and candy merchant, died when Moffitt was two. His mother remarried twice, having three more children.
Relatives said that while Moffitt loved to tell jokes and stories, he didn’t talk much about his youth.
They weren’t happy memories, according to Hallett’s biography.
One of Moffitt’s stepfathers was a "drunkard" who squandered his wages and whipped young Moffitt, Hallett wrote. Moffitt was teased at school, where he was "ill-clothed, often hungry and barefoot," Hallett wrote. At times he lived with relatives or in foster homes.
Moffitt never forgot several acts of kindness from those hard times, including Christmas gifts from the Salvation Army and shoes from one of his teachers, Hallett wrote.
Moffitt spent much of his teen and early adult years helping support his mother and siblings. Eventually, the strain and long hours caused him to have a nervous breakdown, Hallett wrote. He later served in the Army medical corps in stateside hospitals during World War I.
News of the hardships detailed in Hallett’s biography shocked some of Moffitt’s relatives when they were told of them last week.
"Not having shoes? My goodness," Moffitt’s great-niece Nancy Pagaduan exclaimed from her Aloha, Ore., home. "We have a picture of his mother and her sisters and they’re beautiful, little Victorian girls. It’s hard to think about her being married and not being able to make ends meet."
In 1926, then his late 20s, Moffitt moved to Castle Rock and started buying logged-off and second-growth timberland, sometimes for just $5 an acre.
"I think it was just a way for him to accumulate property for his retirement," Roubicek said. "And he always held on to it. (Frank Hallett) would say sometimes he’d pay the taxes on the tree farm before he’d eat."
Moffitt ran a farm on his land and also worked 30 years as a postal carrier, bringing home every stray dog he found, Parham said. At one point he had as many as 27 dogs, Parham said.
During the Great Depression, Moffitt worked for the Works Progress Administration and in California shipyards. He also was a "very caring and effective" social worker in Cowlitz County, Hallett wrote. He retired from the post office in 1966.
He had enough to still help relatives from time to time, but Moffitt himself lived in a small home on his Delameter Road tree farm that everyone who knew him describes as a "shack." When Roubicek first saw the overgrown, abandoned building in the 1980s he thought it was an old chicken coop.
"He lived a pauper’s existence out there on Delameter Road," Roubicek said. "(The shack) was the God-awfulest thing." His long-time friends and caretakers Harold and Virginia Brown helped out on the tree farm as Moffitt got older.
Some people called him a hermit, but Moffitt visited and vacationed with family and friends through the years, including trips to Hawaii and the Ozarks.
In the 1970s, Moffitt’s life changed dramatically. Friends convinced him to log 183 acres along Woodside Drive. He made a windfall during the log export boom and socked most of it away in treasury bonds. He’d moved to a cottage in the 1960s and moved into a house in Castle Rock in 1979.
He splurged on a Cadillac and a motor home, but even then he wasn’t flashy. He owned the motor home 15 years but only put 80 miles on it, Roubicek said.
Haunted by "an innate fear of hunger and poverty," Moffitt remained notoriously frugal, Hallett wrote.
Roubicek remembers as a young lawyer mistakenly charging Moffitt postage on some legal documents. It was just a few stamps, but Moffitt never let him forget about it, Roubicek said.
"He had a long memory and he rarely forgot a slight," Roubicek said. "And that helped to make him a little bit of a character ... a little eccentric."
Moffitt gave money to others throughout his life, but kept it quiet.
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