author
Alfred S. (Alfred Seelye) Roe
1844–1917
A Civil War veteran turned educator, local historian, and public speaker, this Massachusetts writer brought the people and places of New England vividly into print. His books and pamphlets range from military remembrance to town history, showing a lifelong habit of preserving stories that might otherwise be forgotten.
2 Audiobooks
The Thirty-Ninth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers, 1862-1865
by Alfred S. (Alfred Seelye) Roe
John Brown: A Retrospect Read before The Worcester Society of Antiquity, Dec. 2, 1884.
by Alfred S. (Alfred Seelye) Roe
About the author
Born in Rose, New York, in 1844, Alfred Seelye Roe taught school before enlisting in the Union Army during the Civil War. He served in the Ninth New York Heavy Artillery, was captured at the Battle of Monocacy in 1864, and later wrote about his wartime experiences. After the war he built a long career in education and became principal of Worcester High School in Massachusetts.
Roe was also deeply involved in civic life. He served as a Massachusetts state legislator in the 1890s and was active as a speaker and organizer, especially in veterans' circles. That mix of teacher, soldier, and public servant shaped much of his writing, which often aimed to record community memory with clarity and purpose.
As an author, he is best remembered for works on local and regional history, including Rose neighborhood sketches, along with many pamphlets on Worcester history, education, religion, and Civil War subjects. His writing has the feel of someone determined to save names, places, and firsthand recollections before they disappeared, which gives his work lasting value for readers interested in nineteenth-century American life.