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RUFUS R. SEAY
Vol. 5, pg. 1869

The present editor and proprietor of the Oklahoma Ledger at Sterling
has had a long and varied career in the states of Oklahoma and Texas,
was one of the early settlers in Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma, more
than twenty years ago, and has at different times been a farmer,
rancher, preacher and editor. He is one of the strong men of his
community, and conducts his paper for the enlightenment of the
community.

Born in Van Zandt County, Texas, November 25, 1857, he comes of an
old North Carolina family, which was transplanted from Ireland in the
early days by his great-grandfather, Austin Seay, who spent the rest
of his days in North Carolina. Richard Anderson Seay, father of Rufus
R., was born in North Carolina in 1823, went to Georgia in 1827, and
in 1849 became one of the pioneers in Anderson County, Texas. In 1851
he removed to Van Zandt County, where he owned an extensive farm,
partly in that county and partly across the line in Henderson County,
and in 1866 in removing his home from one part of the farm to the
other, became a resident of Henderson County. He finally remove to
Kaufman, Texas, in 1897, and died there in 1898. He as a fine type of
the early farmer and stock man who developed the resources of those
East-central Texas counties. He was a member of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, of the Masonic fraternity, and during the war
between the states gave several years of service to the Confederate
side, serving first in the Sixth Texas Cavalry and later being
transferred to other commands.

Richard A. Seay married Molsey Ellen DELANEY, who was born in
Georgia in 1826 and died in Comanche County, Texas, in 1907. The
first four of their children, John, Mary, James and Frances, are now
deceased; Ann Eliza first married James CAVITT, a farmer, now
deceased, and her present husband is John STEEL, and they live in
Western Texas on a farm; the sixth in age is Rufus R.; Richard
Jefferson is a farmer and stockman in Motley County, Texas; Vernon
Virginia has been lost track of by his family; Ida is the wife of
Leslie STALLINGS, a grocer at Childress, Texas; Robert is a hotel
proprietor in California; Thomas is a civil engineer with home near
Marfa, Texas; and George W., the twelfth of the family, is a rancher
in New Mexico.

Rufus R. Seay attained his early education in the country schools of
Henderson County, Texas. The first of eighteen years of his life were
spent on his father's farm, following which he was employed at
farming and ranching in Erath County, Texas, for a period of eighteen
years, which brings his career down to 1893. In that year he moved to
Oklahoma and became a resident of Pottawatomie County soon after it
was opened to settlement. While there he was a farmer, and was also a
minister of the Missionary Baptist church, with which denomination he
has long been identified, and in its ministry has performed a great
amount of valuable service. In 1904 Mr. Seay removed to Cement in
Caddo County, Oklahoma, and continued farming and preaching there and
in that vicinity until August, 1913. At that date he acquired
complete ownership of the Oklahoma Ledger at Sterling, the former
proprietor having been W. R. KEY. The Ledger was established in 1905,
is conducted independent in politics, has a circulation in Comanche,
Caddo, Grady and neighboring counties, and Mr. Seay has continued it
as a wholesome and attractive journal furnishing a good news and
advertising service to its patronage and locality. He has also
recently purchased the Cement Courier, at Cement, Caddo County,
Oklahoma, which he is publishing on the same principle as the Ledger,
and which was established in 1902.

Mr. Seay is a democrat in politics, and while living in Pottawatomie
County served as a member of the school board. He takes much interest
in fraternal affairs and is a past master by service of Cement Lodge
No. 297, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; past grand chaplain of
Oklahoma Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; a member of Chickasaw
Chapter, Royal Arch Masons; is past grand of Cement Lodge No. 272,
Independent Order of Odd Fellows; a member of Purity Lodge No. 113 of
the Order of Rebekahs at Sterling; and Cement Camp No. 129 of the
Woodmen of the World.

While living in Erath County, Texas, in 1874, Mr. Seay married Miss
Dona SMITH, who died in that county in 1883. There were three
children by this marriage: John Anderson, who is a farmer in Bryan
County, Oklahoma; Thomas Newton, a farmer near Gorman, Comanche
County, Texas; and Henry Harrison, who died in infancy. In 1884 Mr.
Seay was married in Erath County to Nancy HENDERSON, whose father was
the late James Henderson, Seay has been blessed with the birth of ten
children: Nancy Ellen, wife of George S. BRADLEY, a farmer in
Seminole County, Oklahoma; James Richard, who is connected with a
cement plant in Grady County, Oklahoma; Oscar Reagan, who lives in
Cement; Effie, at home; Ethel, who performs the typing service for
her father in the newspaper office; Alice, living at Cement; Lena, at
home; Lea, a twin sister of Lena, died in infancy; William Arvel and
George, who are still in the public schools at Sterling.

Transcribed for OKGenWeb by Lee Ann Collins, October 28, 2000.

SOURCE: Thoburn, Joseph B., A Standard History of Oklahoma, An
Authentic Narrative of its Development, 5 v. (Chicago, New York: The
American Historical Society, 1916).