William James Seelye

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SEELYE, William James, educator and clergyman, was born at Schenectady, N.Y., Apr. 10, 1857, son of Julius Hawley and Elizabeth Tillman (James) Seelye. His father (q.v.) was a congressman and fifth president of Amherst College. From Williston Seminary in Massachusetts, he entered Amherst College and was graduated B.A. in 1879. He pursued graduate studies at John Hopkins University, the Universities of Edinburgh and Leipzig, and at the American School of Classical Studies, Athens, Greece. His teaching career began at Iowa College in 1883 as professor of Greek and German. He was instructor in Creek at Amherst in 1887 – 88, professor of Greek and German at Parsons College, Iowa, in 1891, and professor of Greek at Wooster College, Ohio, 1891-19+11. Having decided to enter the ministry, he took a course in theology at Auburn Seminary and was ordained by the Presbytery of Wooster, Ohio, in 1913. He was pastor of the Congregational church at North Conway, N.H., from 1913 to 1917, and later preached at Chatham, N.J., during the absence of the pastor in the World war. The last years of his life were spent in Washington, D.C., where he interested himself in religious, educational and civic activities, supplying at various times most of the churches of the Washington Presbytery. He was a member of the American Archaeological Society. An Independent in politics, he was at one time chairman of the national reform party in Ohio and a candidate for the office of lieutenant governor. He was married: Sept. 1m 1886, to Mary Alice, daughter of Charles Franklin Clarke of Iowa City, Iowa, and had three children: Laurens Hickok, Katharine Elizabeth, wife of Benjamin B. Wallace of Washington, and Julius F. Seelye. Prof. Seelye died in Washington, D.C., Mar, 27, 1931.

Page 352, The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, published by James T. White & Company, New York.

[Grandson of SGS # 2056 – William James; Julius Hawley; Seth (#2056); Nathan; Seth; Nathan; James; Nathaniel; Nathaniel; Robert]