Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 4.djvu/365

 VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

273

surviving are : Frances Kennard, residing in Baltimore, Maryland ; Ella Emory, mar- ried Thomas C. Bailey, of Baltimore, a re- tired real estate dealer ; Araminta Massey, lives unmarried in Baltimore, Maryland ; Dr. John King Beck Emory, married Elizabeth Bosley. and they live in Baltimore, the par- ents of three children ; James Massey, of whom further.

James Massey Seegar, son of James Mas- sey and Frances Ann Hopper (Emory) Seegar, was born on a farm in Queen Anne county, Maryland, property that had origi- nally belonged to the Emory family, and until he was nine years of age there lived, attending the Centerville schools. The fam- ily home being moved to Baltimore, his studies were there completed, and at the age of sixteen years he made his beginning in the business world in the employ of S. B. Sexton & Son, stove dealers of Baltimore, remaining with them for sixteen months. He then entered the office of the firm of Moritz & Keidel, wholesale hardware deal- ers of that city, at that time forming an asso- ciation that continued for twenty-six years, twenty-four of which he spent on the road in their interest. For the past seventeen years he has been a resident of Danville, for that same length of time being numbered among the merchants of that city, first as a member of the firm of L. C. Clarke & Com- pany and for the past six years as its pro- prietor. The line handled by Mr. Seegar is hardware and sporting goods, including under the former light hardware, mechanics' and carpenters' tools, cutlery, and the like, and under the latter guns, ammunition, fish- ing tackle, kodaks and their supplies, base- ball, football and tennis goods, in short, everything useful or ornamental in athletic equipment. Outside of the city trade, rep- resentatives of the house travel in Virginia and North Carolina, bringing a large job- bing trade to the home office, while a great deal of ordering is done from the outlying districts. At the present time L. C. Clarke •ft Company stands among the foremost in its line in the state. Mr. Seegar is a direc- tor of the Danville Chamber of Commerce, and an active worker along the lines that add to the upbuilding and welfare of his adopted city.

Mr. Seegar married, at Danville, Virginia, June 10, 1897, Annie Wright, born in Cas-

VIA— 18

well county, North Carolina, daughter of William (iriffin and Annie (Lea) Graves, both residents of Caswell county, North Carolina. William Griffin Graves has fol- lowed farming all of his life, and was a cap- tain in a North Carolina regiment during the civil war. He served throughout that entire conflict, being twice wounded in action, and at the battle of Five Forks was taken pris- oner and confined on Johnson's Island until the close of the war. At the time of writing (1914) he is seventy-four years of age. Chil- dren of Mr. and Mrs. Seegar: Francis Emory, born May 4, 1898, died in June, 1910; James Massey Jr., born February 17, 1902, a student in Roanoke Institute; Wil- liam Graves, died aged eighteen months.

George Llewellyn Christian. Many men attain eminence in their chosen fields of labor ; some in more than one field, but it is rarely that any man is able to so impress himself upon the life of the community as has George Llewellyn Christian, soldier, lawyer, jurist, banker, literatteur and busi- ness men. Born of sturdy Manx ancestry, he traces to Thomas Christian who came to Virginia from the Isle of Man in 1687, and founded a family in Charles City county, that as farmers, lawyers, judges, ministers, educators, physicians and businessmen have won distinction and been associated with the development of Virginia from colonial days to the present. Along maternal lines his descent is traced in Virginia to even an earlier day, the Graves family coming from England early in the seventeenth century.

George L. Christian is a son of Edmund Thomas and grandson of Turner Christian, both born in Charles City county, Virginia, that county having been the family seat since the first settler selected it as his resi- dence. Turner Christian married (first) Susan Walker, (second) a Miss Fontaine, (third) Polly Dancy. His first wife bore him : Robert Walker, Susan Browne and Catherine. There was no issue by the sec- ond marriage. By his third wife he had : William Browne, John Douglas, Turner, Lily Ann, Mary, Henry Spotswood, Llew- ellyn A., Benjamin, George W., Edmund Thomas, James Doswell and Thaddeus W. Turner Christian was a Whig in politics, and an Episcopalian in religion.

Edmund Thomas Christian was born in