LIFE OF GEN. FRANCIS P. BLAIR, JR. LIFE OF HON. HORATIO SEYMOUR. CHAPTER I. ANCESTRY AND EARLY LIFE. THE Seymour family were among the earliest settlers of Hartford, Connecticut. Richard Seymour, as we find in the preserved history of that place, figured extensively in its primitive struggles. The history of the family, however, assumed a broader character with Major Moses Seymour, the fourth lineal descendant of Richard, and grandfather of the subject of our memoir, who was born in 1742. Early in the war of the Revolution, he was commissioned as captain of the troop of horse attached to the Seventeenth Regiment, Connecticut militia, and took an active part in the principal events of the war. He distinguished himself in the decisive battle which culminated in the surrender of Burgoyne, and in the establishment of American Independence. Major Seymour had five sons and a daughter. In the "History of Litchfield" we read:-" Of these five sons, one became distinguished as a financier and bank president; two became high sheriffs of this county; one was a representative, senator, and canal commissioner in the State of New York; and one was for twelve years a United States Senator from Vermont-the most remarkable family of sons ever raised in Litchfield. The daughter, Clarissa Seymour, married the Rev. Freeman Marsh, for many years rector of St. Michael's Church, in this town." Among the relatives of Governor Seymour, well known in public life, may be mentioned his uncle, Horatio Seymour, LL. D, of Middlebury, Vt., who was a member of the State council from 1809 to 1816, and of the United States Senate from 1821 to 1833, and Origin S. Seymour, at present a judge of the Superior Court of Connecticut, and for many. years Speaker of the House of Representatives of that State, and Member of Congress. He was the democratic candidate for governor a few years since. Col. Thomas H. Seymour, late governor of Connecticut, and formerly United States Minister to Russia, is a cousin, and was the classmate of Horatio. General Seymour, of the United States Army, is also a relative, as was the late Hon. David L. Seymour, of Troy, N. Y. No less distinguished and patriotic were his maternal ancestry. His grandfather on that side was Lieut.-Col. Forman, of the First New Jersey Regiment in the Revolutionary Army. His grandmother was a niece of Col. William Ledyard, who commanded at Groton when that place was sacked and burned by British and tories under command of the notorious Arnold, on the 6th of September, 1781, and where the Ledyard family was nearly extirpated. It is said that Arnold stood in the belfry of a church, while the town was burning, and looked upon the scene with the satisfaction of a Nero. After the place surrendered, Major Bromfield, a New Jersey tory, at the head of a band of bloodthirsty savages, entered the fort, and demanded, "Who commands this garrison?" Col. Ledyard, who was standing by, mildly replied, "I did, sir, but you do now," at the same time handing his sword to the victor. The tory miscreant, says the historian, immediately murdered Ledyard running him through the body with the weapon he had just surrendered. Governor Seymour as the lineal descendant of Col. Forman, is now a member of the ancient and honorable Society of the Cincinnati. Col. Forman spent all his property in support of the Revolutionary cause. At the close of the war he moved to Cazenovia, N. Y., and received a commission as a general of this State, signed by the governor. Henry, the father of Horatio, was born in 1780, and soon after reaching his majority removed to Onondaga County, in the State of New York, then little better than a wilderness. nine years Mr. Henry On May 31, 1810, was born their son, the subject of our biography; and about after, the family removed to Utica. Seymour, then in the heyday of life, was already conspicuous in those greater interests of the commonwealth which need practical wisdom and personal character in their development and trust. He was one of the earliest and most efficient canal commissioners, a colleague of Dewitt Clinton, was |