Seymour Conway Whiting

Colonel Samuel Whiting's youngest child was Seymour Conway, born in Stratford in 1766. Seymour C. Whiting lived in Stratford his entire life. He appears there in the 1820, 1830 and 1840 census'. Agriculture is listed as his occupation in the latter one. Seymour C., as did many of the Connecticut Whitings, bought and sold real estate on a regular basis. Transactions quite often occurred between relatives. Fairfield County and Stratford land records show Seymour C. conducting business with his brothers William N. and John, his son Ezra C., and with various sons-in-law. Seymour Conway Whiting died July 26, 1841 and is buried in the First Congregational Burial Ground in Stratford with his wife, mother, father, and one son. His will is dated April 3, 1841 and identifies his wife, Hannah, and his surviving children and grandchildren. Seymour C. Whiting outlived three of his children: Ezra C., Hannah, and Lasper. Seymour C. Whiting's grandchildren, Seymour (Webster) and Chester Gilbert Whiting, are shown as receiving their father Ezra's share of the inheritance. Seymour C. Whiting's son, Ezra C., was born in Stratford and died there at the age of 32. He did manage to marry Mary Ann Ufford and have four sons, all of whom also died young (by our standards). Elbert I and Elbert II died as infants and Chester died at twenty-five. All are buried with Ezra and Mary Ann in the First Congregational Burial Ground in Stratford. The 1820 census lists Ezra as being in manufacturing. Ezra C. Whiting died intestate in 1824. Part of his estate inventory is shown below and offers some insight into life at that time. At the request of his wife, Mary Ann, Ezra's estate was administered by his father, Seymour C. Whiting. Partial Inventory of Ezra C. Whiting's Estate Item Appraisal (in Dollars) One coffee mill 1.00 One small trunk .50 One flute 1.00 One bird cage 1.00 One dozen spoons .75 5 bushels potatoes @ 20 cents 1.00 One small bible .50 60 lbs of tobacco @ 3/100 1.80 House & about one acre of land 450.00

After Ezra C. Whiting's death, I believe his surviving sons Seymour Webster and Chester G. went to live with their Uncle Seymour in New York City. The boys were about nine and two, respectively, at the time. Ezra's widow, Mary Ann, moved to Bethlehem, New York for a period before going back to Stratford in the 1840s. Seymour W. Whiting moved to Raleigh, North Carolina around 1834. Seymour's brother, Chester, probably accompanied him there for a year or two before returning to Connecticut as his death there in 1847 was reported in the Raleigh Register. Seymour W. Whiting probably never returned to Stratford; his mother sold his only Connecticut land holding under a Power of Attorney to his Uncle Seymour for the sum of $1 in 1847. Church records show that Seymour W. Whiting and his wife Hannah joined the First Presbyterian Church in Raleigh, NC, in April of 1842. The church is still in use and stands across the street from the old State Capital building. In the 1850 census, Seymour and Hannah are living in Raleigh with six children, Hannah's mother, and two of her sisters. Seymour's occupation is listed as teller in a Bank of State. Seymour died in 1855 at the age of 39. Seymour, Hannah, a daughter, and a grandson who died in World War I are buried in the Whiting family plot in Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh. Seymour's obituary in the Raleigh Register is very flowery but contains little genealogical information. It praises his "integrity, moral rectitude, Christian piety and ardent devotion to every thing calculated to advance the prosperity of this country and the good of his fellow men...7" It does not say how he died or who survived him. It does, however, confirm that he was a native of Stratford, CT, having come to Raleigh when about eighteen. It also relates that while Seymour got his license to practice law he "devoted his attention to other pursuits of business, which secured a more certain income." The obituary suggests that he enjoyed poetry and composed well enough for it to claim that some of his works were "entitled to a place in the highest class of American Poetry." One poem of Seymour's survives which describes the loss of his daughter, Mary Stuart, at age seven. In the 1860 census, Hannah Stuart Whiting is a widow living with seven children. George Mordecai Whiting was the oldest child at eighteen and is listed as being a druggist. Lillie and Margaret were both fifteen; Hannah and Seymour (an established family name by this time!) both eleven; Brainard was eight and Chester was six. Hannah's mother, Hannah Paddison Stuart, and a younger sister, Susan Stuart, were also living in the household. Hannah Stuart Whiting died in Newbern, NC in 1872. George M. Whiting went on to serve as a Confederate soldier in the Civil War, receiving a field promotion to Captain during the second day of the battle at Gettysburg and falling severely wounded on the third day. His obituary says that he lay insensible on the battlefield for four additional days before being captured by Union soldiers8. He spent the remainder of the war as a prisoner on Johnson Island. While there, he contracted tuberculosis which led to his death in 1870. In the 1870 census, Lillie F. Whiting was twenty-five years old and living "without occupation" with her sister Hannah Whiting Burgin in Buncombe County NC. By the 1880 census she had married Philo Chalmers Hall, moved to Hickory, NC, and had four children. Philo was a Civil War veteran who had served as an unassigned conscript for North Carolina and been captured by Major General Sherman's forces in Burke County in June of 1864. He spent a long year as a prisoner-of-war at Camp Douglas near Lake Michigan in northeast Illinois before taking the Oath of Allegiance to the United States and being discharged in June of 1865. After getting married, Philo ran a general store in Hickory and harvested ice out of a local river in the winter to sell in the summer. He ran the store with a brother and other partners over the years and regularly advertised his groceries, dry goods, hardware, etc., in the local papers. The business also included a tobacco warehouse in the 1880s. Chalmers G. Hall, the second son of Lillie and Philo, went to West Point and became a Colonel in the US Army. On September 3, 1925 he survived the wreck of the Navy dirigible Shenandoah which broke into three sections during a storm over Ohio9. Chalmers and others survived by clinging to the wreckage as it floated down some 7000 feet. Lillie Whiting Hall died on April 12, 1892 of appendicitis in Hickory, NC. Philo lived until 1908. Both are buried in (another) Oakwood Cemetery in Hickory. Lillian Hall (my grandmother) was six at the time of her mother's death and went to live with her older sister Margaret. Margaret died during pregnancy a few years later, however, after which Lillian lived with her sister Mary and then her brother Chalmers. She lived on several Army bases out West during her stay with his family. Lillian Hall married James Mack Hatch around 1912 in Hamlet, NC, and died in Columbia, South Carolina in 1972. I have many memories of Grandma Hatch, most of which are associated with food and the kitchen. Several of "Mom Hatch's" recipes are used regularly in my household. James Mack Hatch owned and operated a hosiery mill. He enjoyed wood working as a hobby and made furniture as well as many toys for his grandchildren. I have two pieces he made. Lillian and James had five children, two of which are still living.