Seymour Thompson (1798 - 1855)

Born 7 Sep 1798 in Oneida, New York

Ancestors

Husband of Betsy (McKee) Thompson — married 6 Feb 1832 in Rochester, Monroe, New York, United States

Descendants

Died 18 Oct 1855 at age 57 in West Union, Fayette, Iowa, United States

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Biography

Seymour was a minister.

Seymour was a farmer...

Seymour was born 7 September 1798 in Oneida County, upstate New York. Although there is no formal record of his birth date or exact place, his daughter noted his birthday in her bible. He was the son of Edward and Lucinda Thompson.

Seymour's schooling was basic but he learned to read, write and do reckoning. He became a colporteur[1] delivering bibles and religious tracts to remote communities in Western Canada^[1]. Canada West, as it was then called, was a wilderness of wild animals, Indians and robbers, with a few scattered settlements of Scotch Presbyterians. Into this wilderness he went and traveled from hamlet to hamlet and from cabin to cabin, selling bibles and other religious books. In conjunction with one or two others engaged in the same work, he contrived to have a bible and religious almanac, and possibly one or two other books printed at Cooperstown in New York. After several years of this work he found himself in the possession of about nine hundred silver dollars, a great sum for those days.

Using those funds he entered the newly established seminary college at Auburn[2] in 1826^[2]. He graduated as a Presbyterian minister in 1831^[3] and began preaching in Western New York.

Seymour married Betsy McKee on 6 February 1832 in Rochester, New York^[4]. They go to live in Oneida County and have three sons born there: James, William and Francis Edward.

His voice failed him due to asthma; so that he was unable to continue preaching, and about the year 1838, which was not long after the close of the Black Hawk war[3], he removed west and settled at Beebe's Grove, in Will County, Illinois, thirty miles south of Chicago, where he made a living for his family at farming and teaching school. There were no public schools in Illinois in those days, but every school was supported by the voluntary contributions of those who had children to be educated.

It was here that his fourth son and only daughter were born: Seymour Dwight and Charlotte Jeannette. Four months after the birth of the latter child, in August of 1844, the family removed to a farm in Cook County, Illinois, six or seven miles nearer Chicago, on what was then called Vincennes Road, a half mile south of what is now the town of Homewood, on the Chicago branch of the Illinois Central Railroad (not built till twelve years later). Now a suburb of Chicago, the country was still a wilderness, though it was a wide flat prairie, interspersed with here and there a grove of trees ; there was but one house in sight of the Thompson's. To the westward, as far as the eye could reach, there was nothing but a billowy plain of wild prairie grass interspersed with wild flowers. It was here that their youngest child was born: Charles Arthur.

The house was, of course, built of logs. In those days no settler had means enough to afford a frame house. The farmers were subjected to two dangers : their fences, crops and horses were liable to be destroyed by fire, and their children were liable to be eaten by the wolves. The incident of a little German boy going out toward evening to drive up the cattle and not returning, and his body being found some weeks after, his clothing torn to pieces, and his bones picked bare and gnawed by the wolves, was well remembered by the Thompson children. They also recalled seeing the farmers of the neighborhood with all the boys, and sometimes the girls, turned out to "fight fire". This would present the picture of a single line of flame advancing from the west, and extending from north to south, as far as the eye could reach, ten miles or more in length. The skillful farmers would attack their enemy at the point of greatest danger and handle it in the best manner taught them by their experience, but often without success.

The 1850 census^[5] gives us a snapshot of the family: The farm is listed as worth $600 and the family comprises: Seymour, 52; Betsy, 46 and their six children aged from 17 to just 3.

In 1855 the family moved to Fayette County, Iowa, and settled at a place about fourteen miles west of the little town of West Union along what is still wide flat prairie farm land along US-18. In October of that year, about thirty miles to the southwest of that settlement, some reckless person set the prairie grass on fire. The driver of the stage coach saved the lives of his passengers by galloping his horses along a road until he found a place where the prairie had been broken. Blown by fall winds, the fire destroyed nearly everything in its wake. Seymour and his youngest son, Charles Arthur, had gone with a yoke of oxen to the timber two miles north of his house, and were coming back with a load of wood, when they met the fire in a growth of underbrush, where there was several years growth of dried grass and leaves. Before they really knew the danger in which they were, they were surrounded by the fire and burned to death. Mr. Thompson was able to walk to the nearest house, his clothes burned off, except bis boots, his stockings on fire, his flesh hanging in strips. Poor Charles, aged just eight, was found where the fire had overtaken him, horribly burned. Before the boy died he was able to articulate but two requests: one was for water, the other was for his sister.

Acknowledgement

Much of this biography is taken from his daughter's reminiscences which were captured in a book published within the family at the time of her death^[6].

Sources

1. ↑ https://www.wikitree.com/photo/pdf/Thompson-45664
2. ↑ Catalogue of the officers and students of the Theological Seminary at Auburn, New York, January 1826 https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/2207/32217_632606_0607-00005/89503?backurl=https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/84073814/person/38506904888/facts/citation/660273039064/edit/record
3. ↑ Triennial catalogue of the Theological Seminary at Auburn, New-York. January 1850. https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/2395/32216_622204_2019-00010/16118?backurl=https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/84073814/person/38506904888/facts/citation/660273039048/edit/record
4. ↑ Lineage Book : NSDAR : Volume 164 : 1921 p95
5. ↑ "United States Census, 1850," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M85L-G3L : 12 April 2016), Seymore Thompson, Bloom, part of, Cook, Illinois, United States; citing family 260, NARA microfilm publication M432 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).
6. ↑ https://www.wikitree.com/photo/pdf/Thompson-45664