Seth Warfield
Seth Warfield was born about 1752 in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. He was one of the sons of an older Seth Warfield, whom the family histories call Seth "of Richard," and his wife Mary Gaither. He died in 1812 and is buried at Warfield's Forest, near Lisbon, in what is now Howard County. His dates and his burial come from a memorial made in 2021, without a stone or a source.
J. D. Warfield, who wrote the history of the Anne Arundel and Howard County families in 1905, told the story of his generation. "Five brothers, Seth, Beni, Bela, Elie and Azel Warfield, born on 'Warfield's Range,' came up the Old Frederick Road and seated themselves here to grow tobacco," he wrote. "They took for their wives a Welsh, three Dorseys and a Welling." The land they seated was Warfield's Forest. It lay between Lisbon and Woodbine on the Old Frederick Road, then in Anne Arundel County and now in Howard.
His father's will bears the history out. The elder Seth signed it on 2 August 1798 and made another son, Amos, his sole executor. "I Give and bequeath unto my five sons Namely Seth Warfield, Bani Warfield Eli Warfield & Azel Warfield Beal Warfield all the Reside of my Negroes," it reads. So Seth and his four brothers inherited the enslaved people left over after the other bequests. The same will directed that "my Mulato boy named Harry be sold among my Children to serve untill he arrives to the age of Twenty two years and shall at that period be free." If the children quarrelled over any of it, the dispute was to go to Henry Griffith and Thomas Worthington.
His wife was Ruth. Her memorial calls her Ruth Hammond Welsh, born about 1754, and Warfield's history says one of the five brothers married "a Welsh." Eight children are given for them. Mary was born about 1770 and John about 1772. Nancy Ann and Ruth Hammond followed in 1775, Ann about 1780 and Harriet Amelia in 1783. Seth came in 1789 and Lydia Hammond about 1795. Nancy Ann married a Lansdale. Ruth Hammond married a Dorsey and died in Ohio in 1844.
His daughter Harriet Amelia married Dr. Jacob Benepe, a Swiss-born physician, on a Baltimore County licence of 26 November 1801, and went west with him to Ohio. No record names Seth as her father. The case rests on family accounts and on the names she gave her children. Her eldest daughter was Ruthenett, for Ruth. Another was Harriet Warfield Benepe, and her youngest son, born in 1816, was Seth Warfield Benepe.
He died in 1812, by the memorial. His will and the accounts of his estate are not known. A distribution among his heirs would name his married daughters and their husbands.
Sources
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Cite: Heirology, "Seth Warfield (1752-1812)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/seth-warfield-1752-1812-90e1a3.