John Seymour III

John Seymour, III, was born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1694. He married first to Lydia Mason in 1718, with whom he had nine children, all born in Hartford. She died in 1733 and that same year he married Hannah Ensign. John died in 1758 in New Hartford, Litchfield County, Connecticut. He is buried in Town Hill Cemetery in New Hartford.

Altogether John had twenty children, eighteen who survived to adulthood. He moved to the West Parish of Hartford soon after 1730. He “lived on the corner where the middle road to West Hartford intersects Quaker Lane”, the road long known as John Seymour Road. The streets still bear the same names today as shown in the image at right. In the public’s service, he was elected as an “inspector of staddle wood*” in 1731, 1732, 1733 and 1737, leather sealer in 1739 and 1742, inspector of wood in 1739, 1740, 1743 and 1744, hayward in 1740 and Constable in 1741. “About 1750 (he was then 56 years of age), or it may have been earlier, he removed to New Hartford, then a frontier settlement, where his father, who was at this time alive, owned a large tract of land, the greater portion of which he gave or bequeathed to him. Here he lived in that part of the town known as West Hill.”. He died on the 25th of July, 1758, in New Hartford, at the age of 63. William Seymour, his grandson of Fredonia, New York, recalled John having “cancer in his jaws and face”. He is buried in Town Hill Cemetery in New Hartford, Litchfield County, Connecticut. After years of searching unsuccessfully for his grave and finding none, a descendant (Donald L. Jacobus), erected the memorial shown here. The inscription reads:

In Memory of John Seymour III

Born at Hartford 1694. Died here 1758. Settled here about 1750 on land owned by his Father John Seymour II 1666-1748 who was a grandson of Richard Seymour 1604-1655 the Colonist. His son William Seymour born at West Hartford 1728 died here 1782. His son Noah Seymour born here 1759 died at Sodus, Wayne County, New York 1832. A Soldier of the War of the American Revolution. A staunch Federalist. His son Lot Norton Seymour born here 1788 died here 1844 buried at Nepaug. A Farmer and Millwright he committed “Paradise Lost” to Memory. A Jeffersonian Democrat. His son Henry Albert Seymour born here 1818 died in Bristol 1897, the ideal citizen. His son George Dudley Seymour moved by filial piety erected this stone A.D. 1935.

- Deut. XXXII. 7, Job VIII. 8.

Many of those of the Seymour blood buried in this yard were descended from Uriah, son of John Seymour III and brother of William.

* Staddle wood was a term for trees with trunks between 4” and 18” in diameter, which were controlled for preservation of the timber resources of the colony.