Person:William Seawright (5)

Information on William Seawright

From "A record of the Searight Family", by James Allison Searight, pg. 62:

William Seawright, the eldest son and fourth child of William and Anne (Hamilton) Seawright, of Lampiter township, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, was born in the year 1753. Upon the death of his father in 1771, he was a minor, and William Davis, of Manheim township, the same county, was appointed as his guardian.* The quitclaim deed of the heirs of William Seawright, the elder, to John Glenn, a quaintly worded, valuable document, is given on pages 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16.

When the sale to John Glenn took place, William, being the eldest son, according to a provincial statute, which modified the English law of primogeniture, received a much larger amount for his share than his brother or sisters. After he became of age he married and removed, with his brother, to Augusta county, Virginia, but becoming dissatisfied with the Old Dominion, he returned to Pennsylvania, where he remained for sometime near Carlisle. He then removed to the western part of the State, stopping for a time in Huntingdon and Indiana counties, but finally settling in Cook township, Westmoreland county, on the Loyalhanna river, in the celebrated Ligonier valley, about five miles above the town of Ligonier. Being a fuller of cloth by trade, he turned his attention to fulling, and built a mill on a little stream emptying into the Loyalhanna, near Weaver's mill. The foundations of his fulling mill can still be seen, and not far from it are also visible the foundation stones of the house which he built prior to 1800, and in which he resided until his death in 1824 or 25. William Seawright was an elder for many years before his death, in the Pleasant Grove Presbyterian church, in whose churchyard, near Stahlstown, he sleeps with his wife, and most of his children. A man of character, energy and business, he wielded an influence for good in his community that lasted for years after he passed from life's stage of action. William Seawright, in 1784, married Jean Ramsey, a daughter of Samuel and Catherine ( Seawright) Ramsey,* a native of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, and a granddaughter of William* and Catherine (Jackson) Seawright, of Leacock township, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania. She was born in 1761, and died May 24, 1851.