The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1909-06-02
REMARKABLE MINNESOTA PIONEER.
Father of Senator Seward and of First
Editor in Redwood County.

on the 18th inst, has so much in i
of interest to Minnesota people that
we republish the account by the
Ventura local paper as reprinted ir
the Mankato Free Press. Local i'm
portance is added to the story from
the fact that the subject of the
sketch was the father of the first
editor of this paper, Victor E. Sew.
ard, who established The Redwood
Falls Mail forty years ago next Au-
gust. Senator Virgil B. Seward of
Marshall is one of the surviving sons
of the old patriarch.
In Oneida county, on April 10,
1915, Amos Dudley Seward was born.
He was the fourth in a family of
eight children of whom one brother.
John Seward, now in his eighty
fourth year, still lives at Tallmadge,
Ohio. In 1918 when Amos Dudley
was but three years old, Amos Sew
ard moved his family to the Western
Reserve, in Ohio. settling at the town
of Tallmadge, near Akron. One of
Father Stewards first memories. if
not his first, was of the arrival of
the family at their new home in the
wilderness, the journey having been
made in winter on an OK sledge. The
land for the new home had to be
cleared of the primeval forest and in
this work Amos Dudley Seward lent
what help he could as he grew older.
He also began his attendance at the
country school-for even at that
early time the American settlers
looked as we'll as they could to the
education Of their children-and at
the age Of four years the boy went
to Sunday school for the first time.
Since that time, not missing single
Sunday save when kept away by i'll
ness or absence from town, Amos
Dudley Seward has attended Sunday
school regularly-a record of ninety
years.
Mr.. Seward joined the Presbyte-
risn church at the early age Of six
teeny years and for seventy-four years
has been an elder in the organiza-
ticn. He was made an elder of the
church in Ventura upon the first day
of his attendance here.
The primary school which he at
tended in his youth was held for only
three months in the winter time, but
it served to prepare him for Tall
madge academy. which he entered in
1888. In 1884 he taught district
school for four months, receiving
for his labor the sum of $11 and his
board. The next winter he taught
three months, receiving $13 and his
board and in 1886 he went to work
in brick yard in the neighboring
state of Indiana.
Later he worked as a dry goods
clerk, and then served as assistant to
his father in the engineering depart
ment of the Toledo and Maumee ca
nal, which waterway the elder Sew
ard planned and built. Later. Mr..
Seward himself worked as civil
engineer.
While in Indiana he was married,
on March 5, 1888, to Martha Dwight
Hine, who lived only until the Oath
of September following. On July IA,
1910, while still resident of Indi-
ana, Amos Dudley Seward was mar
ried to Pleiades Barber, who sur
wives him. This couple lived on a
farm in Indiana until April, 1855,
when they removed to Mankato,
Minnesota, where Mr.. Seward was
first engaged in the business of flour
milling. He served there likewise as
county auditor for eight years, and
was post quartermaster at Mankato
during the Indian outbreak of 1862, |
although he did not see any field SER
vice. He also taught school in Min
nesota, although there is no record
as to the length of time that he
acted as teacher.
In March, 1883. Father Seward,
with his wife, came to Ventura,
where the aged couple have since re-
sided. He had retired from active
business, of course, before coming
here. A long life in honor and in
tegrity had served to amass enough
to keep him and his wife very COM
fOrtahlv in their auo RI1t oIthourh |