American Seymour Genealogy

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====== Document-Chest of the First Mayor ======

{{document-chest.jpg|Document-Chest of the First Mayor}}

**DOCUMENT-CHEST OF THE FIRST MAYOR**

The author bought this chest from Peter Lux, a second-hand dealer, who had a
store on Main Street, Hartford. The author has a letter, dated February 22,
1893, from Mr. Lux reading in part as follows: "I got it (the chest) personally
from Governor Seymour's sister [Mary Ellery Seymour] and took it from the attic
of Governor Seymour's house on Governor Street. I bought it at the same time I
bought the papers((Referring to the papers mentioned later in the text.)) and
pistols and other things."

Governor Thomas Hart Seymour died in 1868. A few years later, his sister, Mary
Ellery Seymour, removed to New Orleans to live with her brother, William E.
Seymour. At this time the homestead was rented, and the First Mayor's clock was
probably carried upstairs and laid on the garret floor, as elsewhere described.
Apparently Miss Seymour returned to Hartford about 1885, and maybe at that time
the magnificent malachite table presented to her brother by the Czar Nicholas of
Russia was sold.

After Miss Seymour's death, the house was sold, April 19, 1888. Mr. Bates, the
Librarian of the Connecticut Historical Society, says in his Introduction to
Volume 9 of the Collections of the Society: "The heirs who had the disposition
of the property first removed from the house everything that was considered as
of personal interest or as having special value; the miscellaneous odds and
ends remaining were sold to a local second-hand dealer. Among other things
secured by this dealer was a large and miscellaneous assortment of ancient
manuscripts gathered by him, it is said, partly from old trunks in the garret
and partly from an old desk and some boxes stored in an outbuilding."

This collection of papers was the greatest treasure trove of ancient
manuscripts in Hartford annals. Despite the volume of papers in this
collection, their whereabouts are not known except for the two hundred thirty-
five original Muster and Pay Rolls of Connecticut men serving in the French and
Indian War, 1755-1762. The author well remembers the current gossip about these
papers, their value, and their mysterious sale to collectors of autographed
material, but no one has told that story and it may be that there is no one now
living who can tell it. If these papers had not been looted and dissipated, it
is probable that this History of the Seymour Family, particularly as it relates
to the First Mayor and to his father, might have been altogether more
comprehensive. The chest in question was filled with a portion of these papers
at the time Peter Lux found it in the attic of the Seymour homestead and
transferred it to his shop, where it was bought by the author, empty except for
a few unimportant documents. The author had it dressed over and sent it to
Bristol, where he used it as a document chest until 1922, when his father's
house was dismantled, and it was transferred to the judgment hall of the Birth
Place of Nathan Hale in South Coventry, where it now stands as shown in the cut.
Though a plain chest, it is of superior workmanship, as one would expect from
the First Mayor's "Mohogany Desk and Book Case" and his clock. Today it serves
as a reminder of the untoward dissipation of the extensive ancient manuscripts
once contained in it. The Muster Rolls, among them, were edited by Mr. Bates in
Volumes 9 and 10 of the Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society, and
reference is here made to the Introduction in each of these volumes for further
information regarding those lost Seymour papers. But for Judge Adams, those
precious Muster Rolls might not have been recovered, and but for Mr. Bates, they
would not have been so wonderfully transcribed and recorded for the information
of historians and antiquarians.

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