Whiting, Seymour Webster

15 Aug. 1816–2 Jan. 1855

Seymour Webster Whiting, banker, railroad official, and poet, was a native of Stratford, Conn. When about eighteen years of age, he moved to Raleigh and obtained a license to practice law. Whiting, however, chose a business rather than a legal career. He became an officer in the State Bank and for several years, beginning about 1839, served as treasurer of the Raleigh and Gaston Railroad.

Whiting also achieved recognition as a poet, with his works appearing in several nineteenth-century literary collections, including Mary Bayard Clarke's Wood-Notes (1854), Calvin H. Wiley's North Carolina Reader (1859), and Eugene G. Harrell and John B. Neathery's North Carolina Speaker (1887). His best-known poem seems to have been "Alamance," a celebration of the Regulator battle as a glorious struggle for freedom. On 19 May 1841 he married Hannah M. Stuart, of Raleigh, the daughter of John Stuart. They had eight children: George M., Mary Stuart, Elizabeth F., Margaret, Seymour, Hannah, Brainard, and Chester. Whiting died in Raleigh and was buried in Oakwood Cemetery.