Robert Seeley

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Robert Seeley, also Seely, Seelye, or Ciely, (1602-1668) was an early Puritan settler in the Massachusetts Bay Colony who helped establish Watertown, Wethersfield, and New Haven. He also served as second-in-command to John Mason in the Pequot War.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Robert Seeley was born in Bluntisham-cum-Earith, Huntingdonshire, England in 1602. His father William was a surveyor and trained his son in the trade. In 1623 Robert moved to London, where he became an apprentice cordwainer. He married Mary Mason in 1626 and began attending the church of the Puritan minister John Davenport that same year.

[edit] The Great Migration

In 1630 Robert and Mary sailed with John Winthrop as a part of the original Puritan expedition to Massachusetts. Soon after arriving in the New World, Seeley became one of the original forty settlers of Watertown, one of Massachusetts' earliest Puritan communities. He employed his training in surveying by laying out many of the plots for the settlers. He was granted freeman status in 1631.

[edit] Wethersfield and the Pequot War

In 1633 or 1634, Seeley joined a ten-man expedition led by John Oldham to the Connecticut River. The group soon established Westhersfield, the first English settlement on the Connecticut River. Oldham's death in 1636, presumed by the colonists to be at the hands of the Pequot, helped touch off the Pequot War in 1637. Seeley served as second-in-command to Captain John Mason in the war. He was severely wounded by an arrow to the head in the attack on the fort at Mystic, Connecticut. Captain Mason, who called Seeley a "valiant soldier", wrote of the incident, "Lieutenant Seeley was shot in the eyebrow with a flat headed Arrow, the Point turning downwards. I pulled out the arrow myself." Seeley carried a permanent scar from the wound.

[edit] New Haven

1832 map of New Haven by J.W. Barber
1832 map of New Haven by J.W. Barber

When his old friend John Davenport arrived in Massachusetts, Seeley joined his group and helped establish the New Haven Colony in 1638. Seeley served as New Haven's first town marshall and lieutenant of the militia. He was generally known in the community as Lieutenant Seeley. He also participated in Theophilus Eaton's exploratory expedition in Long Island Sound.

[edit] Later life

In 1659 Seeley briefly returned to England, living there until 1662 when he returned to the New World and settled in Huntingdon, Long Island, New York. He died in New York City in 1668. In 1695 his heirs received 40 acres of land in Watertown, resolving a suit he had filed 60 years earlier after settling in Wethersfield. In the suit he had claimed that he had not been given the area promised to the original settlers of Watertown.

Seeley's name is featured in Watertown, Wethersfield, and New Haven on plaques that list the towns' founders and on a plaque at the base of a statue honoring John Mason for his victory over the Pequots.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • A Brief History of the Pequot War by Major John Mason, with an Introduction by Rev. Thomas Prince (Kneeland and Green, Boston, 1736)
  • "The English Life of Robert Seely" by Ralph M. Seely in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register (July 1962)
  • Huntingdon Town Records, Vol. 1 by Charles R. Street (1887)
  • "The Pequot War," http://www.colonialwarsct.org/1637.htm, from The Society of Wars in the State of Connecticut website
  • The Public Records of Connecticut, Vol. 1 by J. Hammond Trumball (1850)
  • Records of the Colony and Plantation of New Haven from 1638-1649 by Charles J. Hoady
  • Seely History by Montell Seely and Kathryn Seely (Community Press, 1988)
  • Watertown Records by the Watertown Historical Society (1894)

[edit] External links

Persondata
NAME Seeley, Robert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Seely, Seelye
SHORT DESCRIPTION Early Puritan settler in Massachusetts
DATE OF BIRTH 1602
PLACE OF BIRTH Huntingdonshire
DATE OF DEATH 1668
PLACE OF DEATH New York City