Benjamin Jennings Seward was the brother of the more well known William Henry Seward. When William Seward decided to enter New York politics in 1838, he contacted his brother Benjamin and asked him to leave Cincinnati, Ohio and return to Westfield, New York to take over the family land business. Benjamin was eight years older than his brother William, and had worked with Charles Cherry in Cincinnati to establish Sunday Schools all along the Mississippi Valley during the mid-1830's. But when his brother was elected Governor of New York, Benjamin Seward moved from Cincinnati to the Seward farm in upstate New York to take over the family business.