Joshua married Ellender Hasseltine in 1797.1 As happens to most of us, life gets busy when we merge our lives with the ones we love. Joshua’s and Ellender’s lives were no exception.
Over the next several years, we can find Joshua in two places, Anson County, North Carolina and Fairfield County, South Carolina. For us today, the trip between these two locations would be a leisurely trip of 2 hours through the Carolina countryside. But for Joshua, it was a more arduous trip. For the most part, travel was on horseback, with vehicles just beginning to appear in this region. If you were on a “good” road, it was suitable for a pack train.2 This trip would have easily taken Joshua two days. You can see from the map that just in the area where Joshua and Ellender lived, there were a lot of rivers and some mountains, but not a lot of roads.3 The further south you traveled, the less developed conditions you encountered. For Joshua, it was probably a 2-3 day trip.
A year after he and Ellender married, Joshua’s first son, Lewis Perry Seale was born.4 Unfortunately, in the same year his father passed away, which is what brought him to Fairfield County, SC. 5 We know he was in Fairfield County for a while because he joined the Scions Lodge#6 in Fairfield County.6 We also know that for at least part of the time during 1799 he and Ellender were together, because their daughter was born in 1800.7
Whether Joshua traveled back and forth to Fairfield County to help settle his father’s affairs, or whether he and Ellender and their newborn son moved to Fairfield County for a while I do not know. I know if it were me I would make the trip many times before I moved subjected my wife and infant child to the hardships and dangers of a trip through the Carolina woods (remember no carriages, on horseback leading a mule!). But we do know that Joshua was a busy newlywed from 1798-1800!
- “Family Data Collection-Marriages”, database, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com, path=search>card catalogue>Family Data Collection-Marriages>search for Joshua Seale/Ellender Hasseltine. ↵
- Seymour Dunbar, A History of Travel in America. (New York: Tudor, 1915), 166. ↵
- North Carolina (Philadelphia: M. Carey & Son, 1818); digital image, David Rumsey Map Collection (www.davidrumsey.com, image no. 2721023: accessed April 17, 2017. ↵
- “Seales traced in memoriam,” Jasper Historical Commision. ↵
- Joy Smith, Compiler, “Deed: Deed Book M p. 162-163 (Transcription): Fairfield County, South Carolina.” ↵
- “Membership Certificate for Sions Lodge #6,” Andrew F. Smyth Collection, box 4Ja4, Joshua Seale papers, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, Austin, Texas. ↵
- Lydia Frost is listed as Joshua Seale’s heir in his probate documents; Jasper County, Texas, “Final Account of Administration, Book D,” 372-373, estate of Joshua Seale, 1864; County Clerk, Jasper County, Texas; Lydia Frost’s age is confirmed by the 1850 census; 1850 U.S. Census, Clarke County, Mississippi, population schedule, Beat #3, p. 347, dwelling 339, family 341, Lydia Frost, Jasper and Newton Phillips; digital image, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org : accessed 20 July 2016); citing NARA microfilm Series M432, roll 370. ↵
