Seiber Paternal Line
con't.
Philip Seiber 1760
to Fred Estes
Seiber 1919-
APPENDIX:
LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF PHILLIP SEIBER
In the name of God, Amen. I, Phillip Seiber of the state of Tennessee
and County of Anderson, Being in perfect health of body, of a perfect
mind, and memory, thanks be to God Almighty to mind the mortality of
my body and knowing that it is appointed for all men once to die, do
make and _____ my last will and testament. First of all, I give my
soul into the hands of Almighty God that gave it to me. My body I
recommend to the Earth to be buried in decent Christian burial, and as
touching worldly estate wherewith it has pleased God to bless me in
this life, I give, divide, and dispose of the same in the following
manner. Wife first, I want all my just debts paid. Second, I give and
bequeath to my beloved son, Frederick Seiber, this sum of one dollar,
and thirdly, the balance of my sons and daughters I give and bequeath
to each of them one dollar, and fourthly, I give and bequeath to my
beloved wife, wife Mary Seiber, all my personal and real estate during
her widowhood or lifetime, and lastly, at her death my beloved son
Joseph Seiber is to have all of my land and terrain and the balance of
my property then to be divided equally among my children, Frederick
Seiber's heirs. Excepted, I further constitute, make, and ordain
Joseph Seiber Executor of this my last will and testament and do
hereby utterly dismiss all and every other former testaments, wills
bequeaths, and bequeathed. Ratifying and confirming this and no other
to be my last will and testament in witness whereof I have set my hand
and seal this the 11th day of September 1833 signed and sealed in the
presence of us Peter (mark) Johnson David Key.
Phillip Seiber
*Probated 1847
Back to Philip Seiber
BENJAMIN SEIBER'S WILL
To Whom It May Concern:
State of Tennessee County of Knox 410 Ailor Ave BF Seiber I make this
my Will an Testament
First I give my soul to God Who Gave it. Second my Funral expences is
to Be Paid from the Proceeds of the house an lot I now own at 410
Ailor St
Second I give my Trunk and contents with all my papers to my Two Sons
Charles an Ed Seiber.
Third I give my Household goods to my 4 girles Nora Lizie Mary an
Kaity. I Dont want any extriy expence as I have Lived a plane Life all
ways.
I Leave the Rest with all hoping to meet you all again in a better
World. Be of good cheer.
Pend with my one hand. Signed (BF. Seiber)
Sept 20th 1934
*Benjamin died April 11, 1938. |
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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 ten children (nine at
home), and over the next fifteen years added to and subtracted from that
number as children were born or married. 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 she 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, all except Katie (age 4) can read and write, and all
the children except Charles (18) attended school that year. Charles and his
brother Edward are listed as farm laborers, 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.
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