Dr. W. D. Seeley
Personal
Gender: Male
Date of Birth: March 9, 1850
Birth Place: Woodford County, KY
Personal
Gender: Male
Date of Birth: March 9, 1850
Birth Place: Woodford County, KY
DR. W. D. SEELEY was born March 9, 1850, in Woodford County, Ky., a son of Rev. Lyman W. Seeley, D.D., of Woodford, who was born in Lexington in 1814. Rev. Dr. Seeley was educated at Transylvania University, and was at one time professor of the academical department of that institution. He was also professor of theology at Georgetown College and Richmond (Va.) College and later professor at Hollins’ Female Institute, Roanoke County, Va. During his ministry he was stationed at other places: Frankfort, Baltimore and Richmond, Va., and while in Frankfort was private secretary to Gov. Leslie. He was at the head of private schools, and numbered among his pupils Hons. Joe and James Blackburn, Hon. James W. Tate, Gens. John Morgan, Basil Duke, Thomas Taylor, Bishop Gallaher, and a great many others of the most prominent men in every profession. He died in 1884. He married Sarah Shipp, of Woodford County, daughter of Richard Shipp, a prominent farmer of that county, and of Virginian ancestry. She died in 1879, a member of the Baptist Church, as was also her husband.
Dr. W. D. Seeley is the youngest of four children, and was educated in the schools of Richmond Va., and under the private instruction of his father. In 1872 he entered the Louisville Medical College, graduated in 1874, and soon after accepted a position on the Cincinnati Southern Railroad as physician to several miles of its construction. In 1877 he attended the Bellevue Hospital College, and afterward practiced a year or two in Shelby County. In March, 1883, he located in Taylorsville, where he still resides and has a good practice. In October, 1885, he married Miss Ella Newland, a daughter of J. C. Newland, of Taylorsville. Mrs. Seeley is a member of the Baptist Church. They have one child, Hinman. Dr. L. W. Seeley possessed a library of three or four thousand volumes, containing some of the rarest literature in this country, a number being the original print and binding of the middle of the sixteenth century. Dr. Seeley, by those scholars who knew him best, was regarded as almost without a peer as a scholar. He read forty languages, but was no more remarkable as a linguist than he was in every other branch of learning.
“Kentucky: A History of the State,” Battle, Perrin, & Kniffin, 6th ed., 1887, Spencer Co.