ASHTABULA COUNTY OHIO - BIO: SEYMOUR, Burritt B. (published 1925)

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HISTORY OF OHIO, The American Historical Society, Inc., 1925
Volume IV, page 238, 239

        BURRITT B. SEYMOUR.  One of the families early identified with the
Western Reserve of Ohio in Ashtabula County is represented by Burritt B.
Seymour, president of the National Bank of Ashtabula. Mr. Seymour entered
the service of this bank when he was a young man, and has been with it
forty years, except for the period he served as the first state
superintendent of banks in Ohio.
        Mr. Seymour was born at Plymouth, Ashtabula County, February 5,
1856. The Seymours came from England to Litchfield County, Connecticut, in
Colonial times. Like many other of the first settlers of the Western
Reserve the founder of the family in Ohio, Titus Seymour, was a native of
that state, and in 1809 he established his home in a wilderness country
near East Plymouth, where he developed a farm and where he lived out his
life. Titus Seymour was the great-grandfather of the Ashtabula banker. His
son, Bennett Seymour, was born in Connecticut, and was a child when the
family came to Ohio. He followed farming as his vocation and died at
Ashtabula in 1866.
        Leverett Seymour, father of Burritt B., was born in East Plymouth,
in 1830, was reared and married there, and subsequently moved to Monona,
Iowa, where he engaged in farming until his death on March 16, 1866. Monona
is in Clayton County, Iowa. He is a republican in politics, and an active
supporter of the Episcopal Church. Leverett Seymour married Nancy Gillett,
who was born at Sheffield, Ashtabula County, in 1835, and died at
Ashtabula, January 26, 1884. She was the mother of two children, Burritt B.
and Mary E. Mary, who died at Ashtabula January 6, 1917, was the wife of
George C. Hubbard, an Ashtabula manufacturer.
        Burritt B. Seymour was a child when his parents moved out to Iowa,
and he lived there until he was twelve years of age, attending the common
schools in Clayton County. With his mother he then returned to Ashtabula
County, and continued his schooling in Ashtabula, graduating from high
school in 1874. For four years he was clerk in the Ashtabula Postoffice and
was employed at several other things until the year, 1882, when he became
an employee of the Ashtabula National Bank. The Ashtabula National Bank has
been established ten years earlier, in 1872. In 1897 it was reorganized, at
which time the name changed to the National Bank of Ashtabula. This is one
of the sound financial institutions of northeastern Ohio, with capital
stock of $200,000, surplus over $2,000,000. The officers of the bank today
are: B.B. Seymour, president; F.E. Crosby, vice president; H.R. Faulkner,
cashier.
        Mr. Seymour entered the bank as a minor clerk, but he possessed
some of the qualifications that make a real banker and in a few years he
was promoted to cashier. He continued as cashier after the reorganization
of the bank in 1897. In 1908 he resigned his position in Ashtabula banking
circles to accept the appointment tendered by Governor Andrew L. Harris to
become the first superintendent of banks under the new state law creating
that position. It devolved upon Mr. Seymour to organize the State Banking
Department, and he remained in the office until 1910, having served a
portion of his term under Governor Harmon. In 1910 he returned to the
National Bank of Ashtabula, and has since been president and treasurer of
the Ashtabula Water Supply Company, is a director and treasurer of the
Ashtabula Telephone Company, and vice president of the Ashtabula Hide and
Leather Company.
        His has been a business career without diversion in politics beyond
exerting a helpful influence in community affairs. He is a republican
voter, is a vestryman of St. Peter's Episcopal Church, is a member of the
Lake Shore County Club, and is a trustee of Lake Erie College at
Painesville. During the World war he acted as treasurer of the Ashtabula
County Chapter of the Red Cross, and gave his assistance to all the
patriotic drives made during that period.
        Mr. Seymour lives in a country home adjoining Ashtabula, having
sixteen acres of land in his homestead. He married at Painesville, Ohio,
February 11, 1890, Miss Mary H. Greer, daughter of William F. and Cornelia
(Huntington) Greer, now deceased. Her father was a farmer and for a time
was secretary of the Ohio State Board of Agriculture. Mrs. Seymour finished
her education in the Lake Erie College at Painesville. She died at
Ashtabula July 22, 1906.
        Mr. Seymour's only child is Eleanor P., who graduated from the
National Cathedral School at Washington, District of Columbia. She is now
the wife of Holland A. Hubbard, a resident of Toledo, where he is engaged
in the real estate business.


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