Seaburg History

Seaburg , the ancient school and church in section 35 of Creal Springs Township, bore the name of the Seay family, early settlers nearby. Jesse Seay made his land entry in 1838.

Seay School was probably built as early as 1825, in the midst of virgin forest known locally as Locust grove. The log cabin stood ten feet high and was heated by an open hearth at one end. At the opposite end were the one door and one window that provided light and ventilation. Teachers in the earliest days were paid at the rate of two bits a day. This was the forerunner of the Creal Springs public schools.

In 1846 the Methodists of the neighborhood organized a church in the schoolhouse. Among the charter members were Rev. and Mrs. Amber H. Seay, Mr. and Mrs. N. P. Westbrook, Elijah O. Creal (father of the founder of Creal Springs), several members of the Brown family, and a number of ladies. Rev. Mr. Seay was one of the first preachers who expounded the Methodist doctrines at Seaburg church, but Ritchey Oliver and Elijah Hood were also heard there regularly in the fifties.

Church and school used the same building until 1879, when a new log church was built half a mile north, within the present limits of Creal Springs and near the old cemetery. This structure, scarcely less crude than the original, was known as “God’s barn.'” By chance the move had taken the church to the new village whose development began in 1881. The congregation increased as the village grew and other church buildings housed them. The one now in use (in 1939) dates from 1898 and the pastorate of Rev. Mr. McGruff.

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(Extracted from Pioneer Folks and Places, Barbara Barr Hubbs, 1939 which is on sale at the Williamson County Museum)