Clarence Walker Seamans (June 5, 1854 – May 30, 1915) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 typewriter

Typewriter

A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the pieces...

 manufacturer and executive of several organizations involved in the production and sale of the Remington typewriter, including the Union Typewriter Company and the Remington Typewriter Company.

Early life

Seamans was born June 5, 1854 in Ilion, New York

Ilion, New York

Ilion is a village in Herkimer County, New York, United States. The population was 8,610 at the 2000 census. Ilion is a name for the ancient city of Troy.The Village of Ilion is at the north town line of the Town of German Flatts...

 to Abner Clark Seamans and Caroline Matilda Williams. Seamans began work as a clerk at E. Remington and Sons

E. Remington and Sons

E. Remington and Sons was a manufacturer of firearms and typewriters. Founded in 1816 by Eliphalet Remington in Ilion, New York, on March 1, 1873 it started manufacturing the first commercial typewriter.-Becoming "E. Remington & Sons":...

, the firm at which his father was a purchasing agent, at the age of fifteen. In 1875, he began a three year stint of overseeing a silver

Silver

Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

 mine in Bingham Canyon, Utah

Bingham Canyon, Utah

Bingham was a city formerly located in southwestern Salt Lake County, Utah, United States, in a narrow canyon on the eastern face of the Oquirrh Mountains. The Bingham Canyon area boomed during the first years of the twentieth century, as rich copper deposits in the canyon began to be developed,...

. Upon returning to the state of New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, Seamans became a bookkeeper and salesman at Fairbanks & Company, a scale manufacturer. Fairbanks had become the sole marketer of the Sholes and Glidden typewriter

Sholes and Glidden typewriter

The Sholes and Glidden typewriter was the first commercially successful typewriter. Principally designed by the American inventor Christopher Latham Sholes, it was developed with the assistance of fellow printer Samuel W. Soule and amateur mechanic Carlos S. Glidden...

, produced by Seaman's former employer, E. Remington and Sons. After 1879, Seamans lived in Brooklyn

Brooklyn

Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

 with his wife Ida Gertrude Watson and their two daughters, Mabel and Dorothy.

Involvement with the Remington typewriter

In 1881, marketing of the typewriter returned to Remington. Seamans had been a "star typewriter salesman" and was retained and made manager of sales. The following year, Seamans partnered with Harry H. Benedict, a Remington director, and William O. Wyckoff, a Remington sales agent, to form the firm of Wyckoff, Seamans & Benedict. In 1886, Wyckoff, Seamans & Benedict purchased the typewriter business from Remington and, in 1892, formed the Remington Standard Typewriter Company with Seamans as the treasurer and general manager. A year later, Seamans was made president of the Union Typewriter Company, a trust

Trust (19th century)

A special trust or business trust is a business entity formed with intent to monopolize business, to restrain trade, or to fix prices. Trusts gained economic power in the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Some, but not all, were organized as trusts in the legal sense...

 formed from the merger of Remington Standard with several prominent typewriter manufacturers. Seamans presided over the acquisition of the Wahl Adding Machine Company, which made Union the world's largest typewriter company. Seamans remained president until being elected to chairman of the board in 1913. During this time, Seamans held a director position at several trust companies

Trust company

A trust company is a corporation, especially a commercial bank, organized to perform the fiduciary of trusts and agencies. It is normally owned by one of three types of structures: an independent partnership, a bank, or a law firm, each of which specializes in being a trustee of various kinds of...

 and an insurance company.

Seamans died at his summer home in Pigeon Cove, Massachusetts on May 30, 1915.