Dingler

Tillman Kimsey Seago, founder and namesake of the Dallas County town of Seagoville, state legislator, farmer, merchant, and postmaster, was born on July 29, 1836, in Cherokee County, Georgia. He was the eldest son of Lucinda (Garrett) Seago and Isaac L. Seago. His father served in the Mexican War and died of the measles in Mexico when Tillman was only ten years old. Unable to sustain the family farm in Georgia following the death of Tillman’s father, Seago’s mother moved the family to a farm near the present-day town of Linden in Cass County, Texas, in 1851. Tillman was educated in “common schools” and continued to live with his mother until he married four years later.

On August 23, 1855, in Cass County, Seago married Matilda Elvira Davenport, daughter of a prominent Georgia planter. The couple had eight children: Sarah, Tighlman (or Tillman), Lillie, Polly, Benjamin, Lydia, Ada, and Cynthia. Seago dabbled in farming in Northeast Texas before turning to carpentry for his livelihood and continued in that trade until the outbreak of the Civil War. He and his wife both were the progeny of several generations of slaveowners (though owning none themselves). Seago enlisted as a private with the Confederate Army in 1861 initially for a one-year term in Company I in the Third Texas Cavalry and eventually joined up with the command of Brig. Gen. Benjamin McCulloch, a former Republic of Texas congressman who was later killed at the battle of Pea Ridge. Seago saw action in the battle of Oak Hill and experienced “much hard service” throughout Arkansas and Missouri. He also participated in the battle of Iuka in September 1862, during which he was taken prisoner by Union forces but released a short time later. He returned to his regular regiment and remained with it until the end of the war.