SARAH SEELEY (ZIELE)
WILCOX:
Sarah was born in
Albany, New York in 1780 of Loyalist parents. She was christened in
the Schaghticoke Dutch Reformed Church at Schaghticoke, Rensselaer,
New York as Sarah Ziele. Her father was listed as Augustus Ziele and
Mary Brisbane. They went to Canada during the Revolutionary War.
While they lived in Canada the name Ziele and Seeley were both used.
After coming back to the United States it was always Seeley.
She married Hazard
Wilcox in 1801 in Ontario, Canada. Sarah was the mother of fourteen
children, which included three sets of twins. . After the birth of
their fifth child and just before the War of 1812 broke out, Hazard
and Sarah returned to the United States.
They traveled down the
Mississippi River to Cairo, Illinois, then made their way to Carmi,
White, Illinois, which is on the eastern border of the state. While
residing here, she had six more children, and buried six of her
fourteen children. Between Oct 1821 and Feb 1824, they left Carmi and
went around the southern tip of Illinois, touching into the Arkansas
territory where she had her last living child. They then made their
way up the Mississippi River to Madison county, Missouri for a short
time, then on up the river to Marion county, Missouri where she
buried another set of twin and her husband. Hazard died in 1831. At
the time of her widowhood, she had four married daughters and a
daughter age 11 and a son age 7.
In May of 1833 George
H. Hinkle and Elisha N. Groves, Mormon missionaries taught Sarah
about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, she and her
daughter Clarissa Jane were baptized 26 May 1833. Her son John Henry
was baptized shortly thereafter. She and her two children immigrated
to Jackson county, Missouri in October of the same year. (Some of her
married children also joined the church and went to Jackson County).
Sarah and her family had only been in Jackson County a little over a
month when the saints were compelled to leave the County. The people
of Clay County took pity on the saints and invited them to live there
until they could return to Jackson County or found permanent dwelling
someplace else. They lived at Clay County for two and a half years,
but once again they were persecuted by mobs and told they had to
leave.
They then moved into Ray
County for about a year, then in 1837 they moved to Far West. She
experienced all of the persecutions of Missouri, and fled with the
other saints when Gov. Boggs signed the Extermination Order. The
family made the trip into Nauvoo, finally settling across the river
into Nashville, Lee County, Iowa. On the 1840 federal census she was
listed as Widow Wilcox. The Justus Azel Seeley and James Ross Young
families also settled in Lee County.
When the saints were
driven from Nauvoo and Lee county, the family made their way to
Winter Quarters. The summer of 1847 found them on their way across
the plains in the same company as the Seeleys and Youngs. (Her
daughter Clarissa having married Justus Wellington Seeley at Lee
county) They arrived in the Salt Lake valley in what is known as the
second company, arriving in Sep 1847. Sarah made her home with her
daughter Mary Lowery in Manti, Sanpete, Utah and there she passed
away in Nov 1856.
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