History of Texas, Together with a Biographical History of Milam, Williamson, Bastrop, Travis, Lee and Burleson Counties. Page: 308

HISTORY OF TEXAS.

the Civil war Mr. Wilson did not feel it
his duty to leave his family until the struggle
had :nearly closed, when he entered a
company and served in Arkansas and Louisiana.
Politically, he is a staunch Democrat,
and has voted that ticket from 1848, for
Lewis Cass, to 1892, for Cleveland. He is
a Master Mason, and a member of the
Methodist Church.
Mr. Wilson was married May 31, 1854,
in Travis county, to Mildred R. Smith,
who mas horn in Tennessee but came to
Texas with her father in 1850. She was a
daughter of William Smith, a Primitive Baptist
minister. Our subject and wife had
twelve children, viz.: Mary E., now Mrs.
W. W. Puckett, of Buda, Texas; William
S., of Travis county; Annie W., wife of J. T.
McGee, of Ilutto, this State; John M., also
of Travis county; J. B., a resident of Granger;
Mildred E., now Mrs. W. D. Miller, of
this county; Sallie B., wife of Millo Sloss, of
Granger; and D. M., Robert Lee, Benjamin
H., Albert S. and Edna, at home. The wife
and mother died March 27, 1892, having
been a consistent member of the Methodist
Church. She was a helpmate to her husband,
a kind aud affectionate mother, and
a good neighbor.
rE DWARD SEII)ERS, deceased, was a
eon of Jacob and Mary Seiders,
--i natives of M1aine. The father lived
and died in Waldborough, that State, was a
farmer by occupation, served as sheriff of
his native county, w.as a Democrat in his political
relations, and an active member and
Deacon in the Congregational Church. /He
gave hlis children good educational adant

ages, and was held in high esteem in the
neighborhood in which he lived. Mrs. Seiders,
also a member of the Congregational
Church, was an exemplary woman. Mr. and
Mrs. Seiders are both now deceased. They
were the parents of seven children: Henry,
John, Ambrose, William, Elizabeth, Jane
and Edward, all now deceased, but lived
to ages ranging from seventy to ninety
years.
Edward Seiders, the subject of this sketch,
was born in Lincoln county, Maine, February
27, 1813. At the age of seventeen years
he began teaching a winter school as a means
for further education, and later spent one
year in a seminary. At the age of twenty
years he found employment as clerk in a
wholesale dry-goods house in Boston, but
finding that occupation too confining he accepted
a position as traveling salesman for
the same firm, which he continued about two
years. In 1834, on account of lung trouble,
Mr. Seiders removed to New Orleans, where
he was employed as shipping clerk in the
Andrews Bros. dry-goods house, but was
also obliged to abandon that position on account
of ill health. At that time yellow
fever became an epidemic, but as he was
about to leave the city his doctor told him
his life was not worth running for, and he
remained, contracted the fever, and was cured
of hemorrhages: Mr. Seiders then went by
water to Victoria, thence to Brazoria, where
lie was engaged in the mercantile business
two years, and next removed to Austin. In
the latter city lie embarked in the grocery
and livery business, and in 1850 located on
his farm hear Seiders Springs, which was
named in his honor. He first lived in a log
house built by his father-in-law. Mr. Seidera
made his own way in the world. from the
age of seventeen years, and, notwithstar-ding