Immediately on arriving in California he engaged actively in agriculture. This occupation he followed successfully until 1869 when concluding that he had acquired sufficient of this worlds goods to enable them to spend their declining years in comfort, he sold his farm and took passage with his family on board a steamer bound for New York harbor, thence he went by rail to Chicago, thence to Cambridge, where they visited for a short time with relatives. Here Mr. Seely purchased a family carriage and a beautiful span of bay horses and with his family drove over into Iowa to the little town Olin, where his father was still living since he first settled in the state, and here they supposed that their roaming was at an end. But after purchasing his father’s farm and building a beautiful residence and spending two winters there, he sighed for the congenial climate of California, and once more outfitted to cross the plains, this time with horse teams.

Starts Back Again
In the spring of 1871 he again started on the old emigrant trail in company with his father, Norman B. Seely, and a younger brother, M.J. Seely, who, shortly after their arrival in California, embarked in the medical profession, which he still follows successfully.

Mr. Seely is also survived by another brother, G.W. Seely, who has been for many years engaged in mining operations in California, Idaho and Oregon, and who is now retired to his farm near Aromas.

Again safe in his favorite State, Mr. Seely took up his old occupation in the production of California’s natural and most staple product, wheat. In this industry Mr. Seely now embarked on a large scale, cultivating thousands of acres in different sections of the country with varied success until 1880, when he again retired from the great wheat producing field and settled on Tenth street, San Jose, where he resided with his family until 1884, when he purchased one of the finest orchard and residence properties in Santa Clara county, known as the McAlister place, on Bascom avenue. Here he again took on himself the cares of an active business career and engaged in horticulture where he remained until 1894, when death took away Mrs. Salena Seely, his estimable companion, who, through all his wanderings and varied successes, had given to him in consequence of their union a family of thirteen children, eight of whom still survive him.

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