James M Seay (1752 - 1850)

Born 6 Aug 1752 in Colony of Virginia, British Colonial America

Ancestors

Husband of Elizabeth (Crank) Seay — married 26 Jul 1788 in Bertie, North Carolina, United States

Descendants

Died 2 Dec 1850 at age 98 in Spartanburg, Spartanburg, South Carolina, United States

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Biography

Private Jammie Seay served with 2nd Virginia Regiment (1777), Continental Army during the American Revolution.

Jammie Seay is an NSSAR Patriot Ancestor.
NSSAR Ancestor #: P-286704
Rank: Private

Jammie Seay is a DAR Patriot Ancestor, A101239.

• Space:Seay Family Soldiers
• Space:My Revolutionary Soldiers

MILITARY SERVICE RECORDS

VALLEY FORGE MUSTER

ID: VA07770

Private James Seay. Rank and File

State: Virginia

Ethnicity:

Division: 5th Brigade

Weedon's Regiment, 2nd Virginia Company

Capt. William Taylor^[1]

DAR RECORD:

SEAY, JAMES

Ancestor #: A101239

Service: VIRGINIA

Rank: PRIVATE

Birth: 4-6-1752

Death: POST 1840

SPARTANBURG SOUTH CAROLINA

Service Description: 1) CAPT EVERETT MEADE,2D REGT.^[2]

SAR RECORD:

Ancestor #: P-286704

Service: VA

Type of Service:

Rank: Private

Birth: 1752

Death:1840

Cemetery: St. Timothy's Chapel Bur G, Spartanburg, SC^[3]

James was a member of Company 3, 2nd Virginia Regiment of the Continental Line. Jamie was the last Continental Line Soldier to live in Spartanburg County, SC.^[4]

Jammie Seay was born in Virginia on the 6th of August 1752 (this date is from his War Pension). The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) has his birth date as April 12, 1752. He served in the 2nd Virginia Regiment from February 26,1776 - February 25,1778 during the Revolutionary War.^[5][6]

Jamie's home place is in the Historic Register.

Spartanburg History:

Jamie's obituary suggests that at one time he owned as much as 500 acres of land south and west of the Spartanburg Courthouse. In his old age, there is the possibility that he divided the tract among his children and lived with his son, Kinsman, in the Seay House. Although the home place was certainly modest, Kinsman Seay was respected in the village and a founder of Central Methodist Church. As late as the 1890's Kinsman's unmarried daughters still lived in the house and maintained the family ties to Central Methodist Church.

Jamie died in Spartanburg on December 2, 1850 on Arkwright, Spartanburg County, South Carolina. (DAR states his death was on June 1, 1850). He was buried at New Hidden Hill Baptist Church, Arkwright, Spartanburg County, South Carolina, USA. This was formerly known as Saint Timothy's Episcopal Church. Pvt. Seay is the only grave there. ^[7]

The DAR marked Pvt. Seay's Grave in 1915. ^[8]

Major A.H. Kirby's address at the placing of Jamie's DAR Marker

Having known James Seay, a soldier of the Revolutionary war, in my boyhood days, about 1839, and having participated in the burial of the old soldier on this strip of ground, where he was laid to rest with military honors about 1850, is perhaps the reason I have been invited by the Daughters of the Revolution to participate in these exercises. When a boy of ten years of age I became acquainted with Mr. Seay, the soldier who lived just across the from this spot of ground. When Mr. Seay first came down here from Virginia, soon after the revolutionary war, he must have found this a fine forest of beautiful timber and very productive, with plenty of deer and wild turkeys. (I have heard his son, Kinsman, say that on Kirby Hill where I now live, was a good deer stand, called the Hickory stand, where the deer, in crossing from the Lawson's Fork creek to the Fairforest creek, to the canebrake, would stop to listen for the dogs to track on them.) Mr. Seay was quite old and feeble when I first met him in his humble home. I found him to be a man of amiable disposition, and quite generous, for he never denied me of the fruits he had about his house. I enjoyed the apples that grew about his garden. I was too young to talk with him about the war, but frequently the young law students at the village would come down to hear his stories of the revolution, whom he always agreeably entertained.

Mr. Seay must have Owned about 500 acres of land just around here, which he divided among his children. Several years before his death he became so feeble that he moved across the creek to live with his son, Kinsman Seay, where he died at the age of about 93. On hearing of his death on that day in 1850, the military company of Spartanburg, under command of Gen. O.E. Edwards, who was then captain, was called together and marched to the home of the deceased. From thence his body was brought to the spot and laid in the grave which had been prepared, and buried with military honors. Three salutes of musketry being fired over the grave. It is very fit and proper that this stone be erected to further perpetuate the memory of the dead soldier, and the daughters of the Revolution are to be congratulated and thanked for their efforts in this behalf; also the congress of the United States for the donation of the stone marking the grave. I think it is fortunate that this spot of ground has fallen into the hands of a Christian church which will ever protect it, and care for it, as a sacred spot, and where lies a soldier of the revolution.

Read Why Seay is Not French Huguenot

Sources

1. ↑ Valley Forge Muster.
2. ↑ DAR Search.
3. ↑ SAR Patriot and Grave Index accessed April 11, 2014.
4. ↑ Saffell, W.T.R. Records of the Revolutionary War, Baltimore MD, Genealogical Publishing Co. 1969.
5. ↑ Revolutionary War Application.
6. ↑ Ambrose, Lorene Burton, Jammie Seay: His Descendants & Other Allied Families (1999).
7. ↑ Find A Grave.
8. ↑ Upper South Carolina Genealogy and History, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 1983.

See also:

• A Genealogical History of the Seay Family In America and Kindred Families As Chronicled by Mary Mills Emory.
• Ambrose, Lorene Burton, Jammie Seay: His Descendants & Other Allied Families (1999)
• War of 1812 Records, Fold3
• Roster War of 1812 SC
• National Historic Register Jamie Seay House
• Colonial and Revolutionary History of Upper South Carolina
• Descendants of Abraham Seay, by Burwell W. Seay 1966, 1971
• Jammie Seay News Article
• Historical Record of the Address for Seay's Marker Presentation.
• Space:Seay_Family_Soldiers
• "North Carolina Marriages, 1759-1979," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/F8TS-XJM : 29 December 2014), James Seay and Elizabeth Crank, 26 Jul 1788; citing Bertie,North Carolina, reference ; FHL microfilm 6,330,319.
• goupstate.com The History of Jammie Seay’s Grave
• Service Record of James Seay, shared by Fold3.com