Seymour E. Day, b. 6 Dec 1856

EACH, KIMBALL, WEEKS

Posted By: Donna Moldt Walker (email)
Date: 2/21/2004 at 11:33:49

Among the younger business men of Sabula, Mr. Day is accounted one of the most enterprising and prosperous. He has been since 1877, engaged in general merchandising, and enjoys a good patronage among the people who have known him since boyhood, for he was born upon the present site of the town, Dec. 6, 1856, about the time it was beginning to assume village proportions. It mostly consisted of vacant lots for several years thereafter, and slowly settled up, and with it grew the boy to youth and manhood.

Aaron W. Day, the father of our subject, was a native of Tioga County, N.Y., where he was reared to man's estate and engaged in agricultural pursuits until coming to the young State of Iowa, in the fall of 1848. Two years later, being seized with the California gold fever, he went around Cape Horn to the Pacific Slope and engaged in mining until 1852. Then returning to this county, he conducted a hotel and general store at Sabula, in company with his brother, Israel Day. They also purchased, and sold wood in large quantities to steamboats, and operated together until 1860. Aaron Day then removed to a farm five miles west of Sabula, near Sterling, in Iowa Township. After the outbreak of the Civil War, however, he enlisted in Company A, 24th Iowa Infantry, in which he served three years. In the meantime he participated in the battles of Champion Hill, Port Gibson, Cold Harbor, the Wilderness, was at the siege of Vicksburg, and met the enemy in other engagements and skirmishes. He was finally disabled by a sunstroke and exposure, and was in due time awarded a pension. He spent his last years in Sabula, and departed this life Feb. 10, 1887.

The mother of our subject, whose maiden name was Catherine Each, was born in London, England, June 25, 1831, and is still living, making her home in Sabula. Of her union with Aaron Day, there were born two children, of whom our subject was the youngest. The daughter, Maria T., is now the wife of Jay L. Kimball, Postmaster of Sabula. Seymour E., during his childhood and youth, pursued his studies in the common schools of Sabula, and later became a student of Bryant & Stratton's Business College in Chicago, from which he was graduated in January, 1876. In March of the following year he established himself in his present business, carries a stock of $12,000, and does an annual business of $22,000. He carries a full line of dry-goods, hats, caps, boots and shoes, queensware, trunks, notions, and in fact everything that could properly be classed in this line. He also has a grocery department, and numbers his patrons among the best people of the city.

Shortly before reaching the twenty-first year of his age, Mr. Day was united in marriage with Miss Alice M. Weeks, the wedding occurring at Mechanicsville, Iowa, Oct. 24, 1877. Mrs. Day was born March 5, 1857, in Mt. Vernon, Iowa, and is the daughter of Lucas and Elizabeth Weeks. The father is now a resident of Osborne, Kan., the mother having died in 1861. To Mr. and Mrs. Day there were born six children, four of whom are living, namely: Albert L., Glenn S., Sylvia M., and an infant son named Cliff. One daughter, Elsie, died at the age of five years, and Nellie died when one year old.

Mr. Day, politically, votes the straight Republican ticket, and has been quite prominent in local affairs, holding the offices of City Recorder, Assessor and Township Collector, and is at present a member of the Council. He has officiated as President of the School Board, and is the Tax Collector for Union Township. He also has the agency of the American Express Company, and the Diamond Joe line of steamers. Socially, he belongs to the Modern Woodmen and the A.O.U.W. In religious matter he is a member in good standing of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

("Portrait and Biographical Album of Jackson County, Iowa", originally published in 1889, by the Chapman Brothers, of Chicago, Illinois)