Seymour, Edward

Born: 1801-03-29 Farmington, Connecticut

Died: 1879-07-23 Ellis Grove, Illinois

Flourished: 1854-07-17 Randolph County, Illinois

Edward Seymour, joiner and farmer, apprenticed as a house joiner following his father’s death in 1815. He subsequently worked at the firm of clockmaker Seth Thomas of Plymouth, Connecticut for eight years, then around 1830 began his own clock making business at Unionville, Connecticut. After losing his Connecticut clock works to fire in 1838, he moved west and joined his older brother Elisha Seymour in Randolph County, Illinois where he worked to establish a new clock making business. In 1842, he filed for bankruptcy. Seymour lived in Randolph County until 1849, when he and his brother traveled to California to prospect for gold. Following his brother’s death in California, Seymour sailed from San Francisco to New York, crossing the isthmus of Panama. After recuperating from an illness in Connecticut, he returned to Randolph County to settle his brother’s estate and thereafter continued to farm in the county. In 1860, he possessed real estate valued at $2,500 and personal property worth $500. By the mid-1870s, he owned six hundred acres in Randolph and Washington counties. He married Harriet A. Johnson of Connecticut about 1830 and the pair had two sons. Seymour was a Whig and later a Republican in politics.

An Illustrated Historical Atlas Map of Randolph County, Ills. (IL: W. R. Brink, 1875), 54A; Sangamo Journal (Springfield, IL), 10 June 1842, 3:6; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Randolph County, IL, 307; Illinois Statewide Death Index, Randolph County, 23 July 1879, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; Gravestone, Ellis Grove City Cemetery, Randolph County, IL.