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He was for several years a Representative in the Legislature of Maine at Portland and Augusta and Deacon of the Congregational Church in Edgecomb. He wrote a History of the Congregational Church, Edgecomb: embracing articles of faith and covenant, and a full schedule of members. 20pp. 12mo. Portland: Stephen Berry, Printer, 1871.

He was prepared for College at Gardener Lyceum and at the Academy at Farmington. After graduation in 1837 from Bowdoin he studied theology at Bangor Seminary. He was acting pastor of the Third Congregationalist Church at St. Johnsbury, Vermont in 1841 and 1842 and subsequently preached as a supply at East Cambridge, at Burlington, and at Plymouth, Massachusetts. At the last place he was urged, as he had been in Vermont, to become the settled pastor. His health, however, forbade, and in 1846 he removed to St Augustine, Florida, where he resided at five years, conducting the services in the Presbyterian church as far as he was able, and giving private instruction to members of the family of General Worth, commandant of the United States military post. Returning north he settled in 1851 in Wiscasset, which continued to be his legal residentce till his death. The uncertainty of his health, and demands on his time in caring for his wife's property in the South, led him to withdraw entirely from the Ministry and to study law with his kinsman, Kiah B. Sewall (Bowdoin, 1829), at Mobile, Alabama. He practiced his profession in the United States Circuit and Supreme Courts for several years. Most of his time, however, was devoted to historical research, and to his publications on the early history of the state. Mention should be made here of his Ancient Dominions of Maine (1859) and his Ancient Voyages to the Western Continent (1895). He was for over 50 years a prominent member of the main historical Society, serving as vice-president, and on its publishing committee and was the founder and president of the Lincoln County historical Society.¹¹

Rufus Lentner Sewall, Boston Broker, Dead

Rufus Lentner Sewall, aged 49, a stockbroker, of 10 Gloucester st, died yesterday of pneumonia following influenza.
Mr Sewall was born in Boston, the eldest of three sons of William Bull Sewall of the Sewall & Day Cordage Co. He attended Mr Noble’s school.
During the war Mr Sewall was interested in Red Cross work and was about to go to France when the armistice was signed. He was a member of the Union Club and of the Nahant Club.
Mr Sewall leaves a wife, who was Miss Juanita C Hewitt of Ardsley, NY, and a young son. Rufus L. Sewall Jr.
His mother is now living near the Riviera. His brother, Harold Ingalls Sewall, is in Porto Rico, and the other brother, William Gilman Sewall, is in British East Africa. The Boston Globe, 26 February 1919.

Ruth Sewall Parmelee died Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012 at Briar Hill Care Residence in Middlefield, Ohio after a short illness.
Formerly of New Wilmington, Lawrence County, she was the daughter of the late Walter C. and Mary Cox Sewall.
She received her bachelor of music and was a professor of piano and did graduate work at Westminster College in New Wilmington. Ruth was a piano student of Arthur Loesser, Cleveland Institute of Music. She also studied music at Cleveland College. She was a supervisor of music in Lamartine, PA, and supervisor of elementary music in the Boardman School District, Boardman, OH. She taught vocal music in Shaker Heights Junior High School and Bryan Junior High School in Shaker Heights, OH. She was also supervisor of elementary music in Chagrin Falls, OH, and pianist for Fred Waring Shawnee-on-Delaware, PA, and listed in Who's Who in Music. Ruth was a member of the American Guild of Organists. She is survived by a son, Richard Sterling Parmelee of Cleveland, and a daughter, Kathryn of Belmont, MA, and two grandchildren.
Ruth is preceded in death by her parents and her husband, Robert Parmelee. She was a friend of Parkside Church, Bainbridge, OH.
Interment was at the Neshannock Cemetery, New Wilmington.⁴

He studied law, and settled in Boston. His name occurs among the barristers and attorneys who were addressers of Hutchinson in 1774; and in the Banishment and Proscription Act of 1778. He went to England, and in 1776 was a member of the Loyalist Club in London. Two years later he was at Sidmouth, a " bathing town of mud-walls and thatched roofs." In 1780 he seems to have lived in Bristol; and on the 19th of June amused himself by loyally celebrating Clinton's success at Charleston, in the discharge of a two-pounder in a private garden; and, three days after, was shot at by a footpad and narrowly escaped with his life. Early in 1782 he was at Taunton, and again at Sidmouth. His large estate in Brookline, inherited in right of his mother, was forfeited.⁴

He served as town treasurer from 1856-1892 and 1895-1896; town clerk from 1863-1893 and 1895-1900; church and parish treasurer for 40 years; church and parish treasurer for 35 years; and church deacon for 35 years.⁷

"He resides on the old Jones, Marrett, and Sewall parsonage, which he has improved by additions and adornments since those of his Grandfather Marrett. With commendable regard for the memory of his ancestors, he has left untouched by the barbarism called modern architecture, that "best room," where Hancock and Adams were disappointed of their "savory breakfast," and where some of these memoranda were written. Its walls are adorned with the painted portraits of Chief Justice Sewall and other worthies, carrying one back to old times when ministers were not ashamed to walk to meeting on Rackets. Those magnificent elm and chestnut trees, four feet in diameter, which adorn the lawn in front of the house, were mere saplings when Rev. John Marrett first visited his "lady love." On one of those occasions, he tied his horse to one of them. Perceiving this, Mr. Jones' colored servant removed it to a more proper place, and, with a native politeness known only to his race, announced: "I'se fetched the gemmans horse and hitched him where folks allers put um, cause he'd eat up the trees me & Massa planted." Faithful and considerate man, he appears to have been the trusted executive of the estate after Mr. Jones' death. Honorable mention is often made of him in Mr. Marrett's Diary. He now reposes in the adjacent cemetery, borne to his grave by the selectmen of Burlington, personally, as a mark of respect for him and the ministerial families he had served so long; and in the Family Bible it is written of him: "Cuff, the faithful Negro Servant of the above Thomas & Abigail [Jones] died April, 1813, having lived in the family about 60 years." " Letter dated 15 March 1847, from Rev. Samuel Sewall of Massachusetts to Rev. Henry Doyle Sewell.¹

A soldier during the Civil War. Co. E. 24th Maine Regt. otherwise a farmer at Farmington, Maine.^6,7