Little is known about Moyer prior to 1893. He was born near Ames, Iowa. Moyer's parents, William and Maria Drew Moyer, were natives of Pennsylvania who migrated to Indiana by 1852 and on to Iowa by 1860. Charles was the youngest of five brothers and two sisters who survived their mother who died at the age of thirty-nine-years-old in 1870. In 1870, one of the sisters, a sixteen-year-old, had assumed the task of housekeeping for the family and care of Charles who was a sickly infant and youth. He attended public school but left after the fourth grade.