Individual Summary for Martha Jane PADDOCK

Compiled by Evelyn W. Henry - January 2002

Martha Jane Paddock was born 31 January 1828 near Rome, Oneida County, New York. Her parents were Peter and Polly (Johnson) Paddock. She married Harvey Hervey Seymour in Rome, New York on 2 September 1847. Her first three daughters, Julliette, Adeline and Adelaide (twins) were born in New York. Sometime before 1850, the Seymours headed west toward illinois, where some of their relatives had sett led a few years earlier. (There is some evidence that Peter Paddock and his second wife, Rebecca, also set out for Illinois, but no positive documentation has been found for their presence there.)

Harvey and Martha moved around in Whiteside and Lee Counties for a time. A son, Charles was born in Dixon, Lee County, but it is likely that daughter, (Frances) Clara was born in Whiteside County. The youngest son, Fred Harvey was born in 1865 in Hume Township, Whiteside County. By the spring of 1874, the Seymours were settled in the Village of Tampico, Whiteside County.

In an article written by Aunt Daisy and her daughter, Elsie, published in the PROPHETSTOWN ECHO on 23 June 1982 under the title “See More (Seymour) of Old Tampico,” Daisy tells that Martha Jane’s youngest son, Fred Seymour, who was Daisy’s father, broke his leg in a fall on the ice when he was about nine years old. There was no competent medical care available for him, and he never received proper treatment. This caused him to be lame for the rest of his life. However, while he was recuperating following the break, his mother, Martha Jane Seymour, devoted herself to him. She “carried him around on her back and hip for a year or more, until he was well enough to walk by himself with a great lift in a shoe.”

A story passed down by Aunt Daisy Nokes via a taped interview with Evelyn W. Henry on 29 April 1981, relates to an incident in the life of Martha Jane Paddock Seymour, date unknown. This happened in Tampico, a number of years before Martha Jane died. Daisy never knew her grandmother, since she was born seven years after Martha Jane’s death, but this story was told to her by a woman named Delilah Aldrich, a local hat trimmer who knew Martha Jane personally. Mrs. Aldrich had a store across the street from the store run by Fred Seymour, Daisy’s father. The story goes:

Martha Jane recalled being dressed in preparation for burial. She was assumed dead until someone scratched her with a pin. She said, “I knew everything. I had so many little thoughts — I could see everything and I knew everything they were doing and it was so grievous to me to be thinking about being put in the ground when I was still alive. Don’t you ever, ever put me in the grave until you know that I am surely gone. She said she felt so bad about it -- so, so creepy about it.”

Individual Summary for Martha Jane PADDOCK

9 May 2003                                                                                                                                               Page 2

                                                                        Notes (Continued) ___________                                                                                _________                                                                _____

Daisy went on to say, “But the Lord took care of her and she was resuscitated. It was one of those things that you have to dwell on carefully. It was a marvelous thing!”

“Martha Jane recovered and lived for years after that. Everybody thought she was such a spiritual woman, and she was. Everybody loved her.” (The latter quote was Daisys description. Daisy, too, was a very spiritual woman. [EWH])

It must have given Martha Jane and Harvey a great deal of satisfaction to see all six of their children married and making their homes nearby in Whiteside County. Most of their numerous grandchildren were born within Martha’s lifetime, and no doubt, she enjoyed every one. Some descendants still live in the area to this day.

Martha Jane (Paddock) Seymour died 19 May 1908 in Tampico, and was buried in the Tampico Memorial Cemetery, Tampico, Illinois beside her husband. A picture of her grave marker is in possession of this researcher, Evelyn W. Henry, who has visited the site several times. Since newspapers are not available for Tampico for 1880, no obituary has been obtained.

SOURCES:

>     Personal & Family Records, Seymour family, records of Daisy Seymour Nokes, Elsie Nokes, Barbara Stewart Cunniff and

Ethel Seymour Whitmer.

>     Handwritten records of Martha Paddock Seymour, in possession of Daisy Nokes, copies shared by Daisy and Barbara Cunniff. (According to Barbara (Stewart) Cunniff, a great granddaughter of Martha and H. H. Seymour, the handwritten record of Martha Paddock Seymour was found “in a small box of her possessions after she died, and Daisy Nokes has the original.” A photocopy of this was sent to this compiler by Barbara in 1981 and a somewhat clearer copy sent later by Elsie Nokes. It is a list of the children of Martha Paddock and H. H. Seymour, including Fred, and of the parents and siblings of Martha Paddock

> Aunt Daisy Nokes’ “See More (Seymour) of Old Tampico” articles that appeared during the early 1980’s in the PROPHETSTOWN ECHO, Prophetstown, Whiteside County, Illinois

>     Martha Jane is not listed in Curfman’s HISTORY OF THE PADDOCK FAMILY or the other Paddock references, i.e., the HUBBELL-CONBOY MANUSCRIPT or Jeanette P. Nichols STUART-STYLES FAMILY, the sources cited for other Paddock family members.

>     CENSUS: Not found in the 1850 Census. 1860 in Morrison, IL; 1870 Prophetstown; 1880 Tampico, all in Whiteside County, Illinois. (See husband’s notes.)