04/27/2025
I might not be organizing or decluttering today, but you can add "resident tombstone cleaner" to my resume. We have an old family cemetery on a 1 acre lot behind our house. From time to time I'll go up there and clean the headstones and take care of any trash or out of control brush or weeds. Today my hubby and kiddo came with me to help. We spent about an hour gently washing the headstones. We had to change both water buckets 4 times because the headstones were so dirty! Then we removed all of the large sticks and pine cones, raked the fallen pine needles and leaves, and then blew away leftover debris. I'm normally good at getting up there every couple of months, but clearly it had been awhile since my last cleaning. Next time I'll make sure only a month or two goes by before cleaning them again.
I met one of the family members in 2023 and have corresponded via email a few times. This tells a little history of the cemetery, which of course I think is fascinating:
My Aunt Nell told us that anyone in the U.S.A. with the last name
"Seago" (regardless of spelling variants such as "Sego", "Seego",
"Ceego", "Segoe", etc.) are presumed to be descended from the John William Seago (b. 1715) of Queen Anne's County, Maryland, the father of Robert Seago whose marker is located in the Seago Family Cemetery.
My understanding has been that Isaac L. actually died in Matamoros Mexico (on the Texas border, across from Brownsville, Texas) during the Mexican-American War immediately after Texas joined the Union, and was likely interred on foreign soil as a wartime casualty. Isaac's death brought the family into financial duress and his widow Sarah Lucinda Garrett Seago (who went by Lucinda) lost the farmland on which your subdivision is located and migrated to the Texas frontier with Isaac's seven children. Of Isaac L.'s five sons, I believe all served as part of the Texas Volunteers during the Civil War. Two of Isaac's sons - Alfred Hutchins and Thomas Phineny - died during the Civil War (TP was only 15 or 16 when he died, so he was childless). Another one of the brothers - Benjamin Lewis Seago - was a field doctor captured by the Union; he also died childless after committing su***de shortly after the War. Another one of Isaac L.'s sons - Tillman Kimsey (T.K.) - went on to be known as the founder of Seagoville, Texas - a city SE of Dallas.
Isaac L.'s wife Lucinda relocated to Seagoville to live with extended family and was well regarded. She died at age 89 and was buried in Seagoville in 1903. The City of Seagoville regularly has a founder's day celebration which I think also serves on some level as a family reunion of sorts for some of T.K.'s descendants. Although the Seago surname is not common, there are many decedents of Isaac and Lucinda located in Texas.
I am not descended from T.K.'s Seagoville line, but from his brother
Alfred Hutchins Seago who left behind two toddler sons after his death during the Civil War. The following is my own paternal lineage as I understand it; I have marked with asterisks those having markers on the cemetery property:
Abraham Seago (1695-1750) b. Lowestoft, Suffolk, England.
John William Seago (1715-1784)
Robert Seago (1754-1810)*
Benjamin Whorton Seago (1792-1857)*
Isaac L. Seago (1813-46)*
Alfred Hutchins Seago (1838-62)
John Thomas Seago (1861-1939)
John Hugh Seago (1902-71)
William Earl Seago (1938-2019)
John Hugh Seago (1965- )
