Seiber Paternal Line con't.
Philip Seiber 1760
to Fred Estes Seiber 1919-

Philip Seiber Sr was born between 1760 and 1770, in Berks County, Pennsylvania. Around 1785, he married Catharina Maria ? and began a family. Their first three children, Wilhelm (Sep 20,1786), Elisabetha (Jul 20, 1789), and Samuel Wesley (Apr 5, 1790) were born in Berks County, PA. The next four children, Frederick (May 26, 1792), Philip Jr (Oct 6, 1794), John (Oct 12, 1798), and Catherine Margaret (Oct 12, 1798) were born in Baltimore County, MD. It would appear that Catharina Maria must have died soon after the birth of the twins in 1798, because records show that around the turn of the century, Philip moved with his family to Tennessee and married Mary Lively in Jefferson County on January 29, 1802. By 1803, the family had settled in Anderson County, Tennessee, on Poplar Creek, now called Frost Bottom. The last three children, Nimrod (1803), Robert (Mar 26, 1804), and Joseph (1809) were born there. Anderson County records show that Philip served on road-developing committees in 1831 and 1832. In 1833, Philip prepared his will as shown in the APPENDIX, and it was probated when he died in 1847. His wife, Mary, appears on the 1850 Census at the age of 81, living with her 45-year-old son Joseph and the Lively family.

Samuel Wesley Seiber was born in Berks County, PA*, on April 5, 1790, but by 1792 his family had moved to Baltimore County, Maryland. As a small boy, he sat on his father Philip's shoulders to see President George Washington exiting a carriage. At the time, Philip told little Samuel to remember the event and to one day tell his children that he had seen the first President of the country. When Samuel was around 10, his family moved from Baltimore, Maryland, to Anderson County, Tennessee.
*(Samuel's son Benjamin mistakenly thought that his father had been born in Maryland.)

Samuel grew up in Frost Bottom on the mountain fork of Poplar Creek, and around 1809 he married Isabel Frost. Her family had moved to Poplar Creek from Lee County, Virginia, in 1796 and built a house there. The area became known as Frost Bottom. Sam and Isabella's first child, Nancy, was born in September of 1810, and their second, Philip, in 1812. Nonetheless, in September of 1814, when Andy Jackson called for volunteers to join him in the nation's battle with the British, Samuel and his brother Phillip Jr responded. Philip Jr was 25 years old and still at home with his parents. Samuel was 24, married, and the father of a 4-year-old daughter and a 2-year-old son. Nonetheless, the two Seiber brothers left their families and walked nearly 200 miles, from Frost Bottom (Andersonville, Tennessee) to Nashville, to sign up. They joined the Third Tennessee Militia and then walked with the rest of their troop down through Mississippi territory to New Orleans, a distance of some 550 miles. The men arrived sometime in December, and were soon fighting for their country. They first encountered the enemy on December 28th when the British launched a minor attack. A similar minor event occurred on January 1st. But on January 8th, Samuel and Philip and the rest of Andy Jackson's men found themselves engaged a major conflict--The Battle of New Orleans. Ten thousand seasoned British troops attacked 5500 American sharp-shooting recruits and volunteers who had stacked cotton bales and earthen walls as a bulwark. The battle lasted only an hour and a half. When the firing ceased, the defeated British had lost 2000 men and the victorious Americans, just 71. Despite their victory however, the Americans remained encamped until March 13, 1815, when Andy Jackson received official word from Washington that the war had ended. Samuel and Philip, along with the other volunteers from Tennessee and Kentucky, then started the treacherous walk through snow and extreme cold back to their homes. Ironically, after having survived the fierce battles, many of the citizen soldiers died on their way home--Philip Jr was one of them. He was buried somewhere along the way between New Orleans and Frost Bottom. Samuel returned safely to his wife and son and daughter.

After the war, Sam and Isabella had more children, including a set of twin boys, Elijah and John, born in 1816 and then Thomas in 1821. By 1824, with several school-aged children, Sam (and two neighbors, Andrew Braden and Henry Etter) borrowed $28 from the state of Tennessee to start a school (according to Aunt Katie, the first school in Anderson County). In 1828, the couple had a second set of twins, Mariah and Sam Jr, bringing the total number of children to seven. By the time their eighth child (Columbus) was born in mid-August of 1832, their eldest daughter Nancy had married a neighbor, John McKamey (1830). On October 2, 1832, Isabella was struck by lightning and was killed as she stood at the chimney's fireplace stirring a pot of stew. (*Because Benjamin Seiber did not list Columbus in his Family Bible Record, the assumption was that the child had died as an infant from lack of sustenance. Census records, however, from 1840 and 1850 indicate otherwise. In 1840, a child Columbus is listed as age 7 along with all of Samuel and Elizabeth's other children. He is listed again at age 17 in 1850, and then he disappears from known records.) Two years after Isabel's death, Samuel, at the age of 44, married Elizabeth Wilkins Chiles, a 29-year-old widow with three children from her first marriage.

Sam and Elizabeth began their marriage in 1834 with eleven children (ten at home), and over the next fifteen years added to and subtracted from that number as children were born or married or died. By 1849, the total number had increased to seventeen--his eight, her three, their six. As the number increased, however, it also diminished--first by two marriages within two years (1840, 1842) and then by two deaths (1842) just months apart (causes unknown). Then in 1843, Thomas Seiber and step-sister Polly Chiles surprised the family by choosing to marry each other. Brother John, who had become a justice of the peace (later to be a Baptist minister), performed the ceremony. By the time that Sam and Elizabeth's last child, Benjamin, was born in 1849, Sam was ten days shy of his 59th birthday and Elizabeth was 44. At the time of the 1860 Census, Sam and Elizabeth's six children were still single and living at home with them. Sam was then 70, Elizabeth 55, Frederick 23, Elizabeth 22, Massey 21, Eliza 17, Malinda 13, Benjamin 11. Samuel died in 1871 at the age of 81, and Elilzabeth in 1876 at the age of 71.

Elizabeth Carter Foote has written an interesting historical-fiction based on the life of Samuel Seiber. It is available at the following link: The Saga of Samuel Seiber

Benjamin Franklin Seiber, born March 26, 1849, in Anderson County, Tennessee, was the 14th and last child of Samuel Wesley Seiber. On September 12, 1880, he married Mary Ann Lones in Knox County, Tennessee.

Mary Ann was the 5th child, but the 1st daughter, of Charlie and Rebecca Lones, and although she was only eleven years old in 1863 when her mother died, she shouldered the household responsibilities of an adult. She took charge of managing the house and overseeing the care of her four younger siblings whose ages ranged from 4 to 10. For the next 18 years, Mary Ann filled the shoes of mother and homemaker for her family. Finally, when her youngest sister was 19, Mary Ann married Benjamin Franklin Seiber and started a household of her own. At the time of her marriage, her dad deeded to her and Benjamin a parcel of land {as he also did for her siblings Jeffrey, James, and Samuel when they married. Youngest daughter Sally (Dowell) ultimately inherited the "mansion," all other buildings, and the bulk of the real estate. Although the will specified that all personal property was to be equally distributed, that, too, remained with Sallie in the mansion and other buildings.}

Between 1881 and 1896, Benjamin and Mary Ann had six children: Charles Frederick (1881), Nora (1883), Samuel Edward (1885), Lizzie (1888), Mary Pauline (1890), and Katie (1896). The 1900 Census reveals that all the children still living at home, except Katie (age 4) can read and write, and all the children except Charles (age 18) attended school that year. Charles and his brother Edward are listed as farm laborers, and the family farm is owned free and clear. In 1910, Benjamin was working for wages as a house carpenter, and children Lizzie, Mary, and Katie were still living at home.

Mary Ann died in 1915, but by 1920, Ben's daughter Nora, her husband, son, and two daughters had moved in to live with him. Also, his two maiden sisters Elizabeth (80) and Malinda (70) were a part of his household. The sisters lived with him until their deaths. Benjamin died April 11, 1938, at the age of 89. (See Benjamin's will in APPENDIX at left.)

Charles Frederick Seiber, the first child of Benjamin & Mary Ann Seiber, was born on July 11, 1881 in Knox County, Tennessee. He married Lydia Adeille Estes on June 12, 1906. Charles and Lydia had seven children: Bonnie Evalena (1907), Thelma Crystell (1908), Helen Elizabeth (1911), Mary Avis (1913), Charles Phillip (1915), Lydia Inez (1917), and Fred Estes (1919). Charles died in Knox County, Tennessee, on July 27, 1940, and Lydia died January 31, 1968.
*Please go to the following link to read a more complete history of Charles, Lydia, and their family: Charles & Lydia Seiber

Fred Estes Seiber, the youngest of the seven children of Charles and Lydia Seiber, was born April 28, 1919, in Byington (Knox County), Tennessee. By the time he was 10, the family had built a large house on Middlebrook Pike (now Piney Grove Church Road) and moved into it. From there, Fred attended Cedar Grove School for a couple of years and then transferred to Amherst to complete grammar school. After a year at Karns High School, Fred went to work, accepting whatever local jobs were available. On July 13, 1939, Fred and Ethel Leora Johnson were married at the Knox County courthouse. Fred brought his young bride to live with the Seiber family in the "Big House" until he had time and opportunity to build a small house nearby. Their first daughter, Eleanor Inez (1940), was born while they were still living with his family, but by the time Delores Ramona (1943) was born three years later, the family was in their own home. Their third child, Fred Anthony (Tony) was born in 1949. To accommodate the growing family, Fred built a three-bedroom house next door to the smaller house he had built earlier. The family remained there on Piney Grove Church Road until 1963 when they purchased some acreage in Anderson County. Eleanor and Delores were already married at the time, so Fred, Orie, and Tony moved to the new location in Andersonville--where Fred and Leora remained. It was there in Andersonville that Leora died in 1996. Fred, at age 90, still lives there independently (2010).
* More to come about Fred and Leora in a separate link.