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Note: Seymour Cobb Rhode, age 60, born South Carolina, is enumerated as Semour Rhode in the 1860 Franklin Twp., Fremont Co., Iowa census. He is living with his son Caleb Campbell Rhode, 24, born Indiana. Also in the household are Caleb's wife, Jemima, 20, born Ohio, and Semour's son Thomas, 25, born Indiana. Along with them is listed a farm laborer, Charles Feltman, 25, born in Germany. Seymour Cobb Rhode, the seventh and youngest of John and Mary Lewis Rhode's children, was born on December 18, 1802 on his parents' plantation near St. George, Dorchester Co., South Carolina. Seymour Cobb Rhode was named for his uncle, Semer Cobb, husband of his mother's, Mary Lewis Rhode's, sister Esther Rhode Cobb. Seymour was just a nine-year-old boy when his older brother William and Wiliam's family left with fellow Quakers for Ohio in northern Ohio near Lake Erie. Another brother, Jonathan, either left with William or very soon afterwards. In 1814, when Seymour was 12, his parents John and Mary Lewis Rhode also left South Carolina for Ohio, taking Seymour and his remaining brothers Caleb and Thomas with them. All of the Rhodes left the South because of the Quaker belief that slavery was wrong. During the next six years, the Rhode clan lived in four places: Ohio, Seymour, Jackson Co., Indiana; Warren Co., Ohio, and near Richmond in Wayne Co., Indiana, where the 1820 census records them as residents. While he was living in Warren Co., Ohio, he met and married Rebecca Hurley of Greene Co., Ohio, the daughter of Zedock and Lillis Campbell Hurley. The extended Rhode family lived in Wayne Co., Indiana until 1826. That year, Seymour's father, his father, John Rhode, and all his brothers William and Jonathan purchased land grants for land in northwestern Indiana near the Illinois border in Warren Co. The land was thick with hardwood trees and near the Wabash and Tippecanoe rivers. John Rhode deeded part of his land to Seymour and Rebecca Hurley Rhode. Rebecca's parents, Zedock and Mary Campbell Hurley, soon joined them in Warren Co., Indiana, and they spent the rest of their lives there. "Semour Cobb Rhode bought 160 acres from Zadoc and Lillis Campbell Hurley, his in-laws, and secured another 160 acres from the government. Zadoc Hurley had originally purchased the 160 acres from the government in Crawfordsville in 1828. Zadoc's wife, Lillis Campbell, was the daughter of John Campbell. They were married at Union District, S. Carolina, in either 1804 or 1805." (From Adilda McCord's memoirs) All of Seymour and Rebecca Hurley Rhode's children were born in Warren Co., Indiana: William in 1827, Jonathan in 1830, Thomas in 1834, Hester, b. ca. 1835, Caleb, in 1836, and Mary Lillis in 1838. William, their oldest died in infancy. Mary Lillis also died at about six months of age. Rebecca Hurley Rhode died in November, 1838, shortly after giving birth to Mary Lillis; their deaths seem to be related. After Rebecca's death, there seems to have been some legal action concerning the disposition of the children. There seems to have been some question as to who should take care of them. Was Seymour Cobb Rhode depressed or mentally unstable after his wife's death? Was he abusive or an alcoholic? (It happened in those days too.) Or did he decide that children this young needed a woman's care? No one knows. Another possible reason stems from the wording of the legal documents: that the children were the heirs of Rebecca. Perhaps Zadock and Lillis Campbell Hurley were concerned that any possible inheritance they intended to leave their grandchildren, and did not like or trust Seymour Cobb Rhode with this money. In any case, at least one of their children, Jonathan, was reared by other family members (two of his uncles, most likely William and Thomas) in Warren Co. Jonathan returned to live and farm with his father, Seymour, when he was 16. In 1855, Seymour Cobb Rhode left Warren Co., Indiana and bought a farm in Fremont Co., Iowa, near those of his nephews Daniel, John and Jonathan, sons of his brother Jonathan. One year later, in 1856, Seymour Cobb Rhode deed part of his farm to his own son Jonathan, and Jonathan and his family moved to be with his father. Eventually, Seymour's other living sons, Thomas and Caleb, and daughter Esther Rhode Gray and her husband Semer, would also move their families to Fremont Co. (Jonathan and his family and Esther and her family would return to Warren Co., Indiana in about 1861.) In 1858, Seymour Cobb Rhode and his family members, along with a number of their neighbors, the were involved in a legal suit over their land. Seymour Cobb Rhode died in Fremont Co., Iowa on November 19, 1861 and is buried in the Hamburg, Iowa Cemetery.
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