Biography

She was educated at the New London Female Academy where she studied under Hiram W. Farnsworth. Though not prolific, her poems and tunes appeared in numerous periodicals and music books. They were published under her name, her pseudonym Agnes Burney, or anonymously on occasion. Her carol The Christmas Bells (circa 1869) has been set to music by at least five different composers. She produced tunes for her own lyrics as well as those of other poets; one of the most widely published was her setting of Mary A. Lathbury's Easter Carol (circa 1883).
She had a long creative relationship with her composer husband and wrote verses for many of his songs. The 1867 collection The Temple Choir, one of Theodore F. Seward's most successful hymnbooks, contained both words and music credited to her pseudonym. She frequently accompanied him on business trips, including the second European tour of the Fisk Jubilee Singers in 1875 for which he was voice trainer and musical director. Seward was involved with the woman’s club movement for forty-seven years. She was a member of Sorosis, the first American club dedicated to the improvement and advancement of professional women, and an organizer of the National Society of New England Women which she served twice as president. She belonged to the Woman's Club of Orange since its inception where, as president, she made the motion calling for the formation of the New Jersey State Federation of Women's Clubs. She was a charter member of the International Sunshine Society founded by Cynthia W. Alden and served it many years as first vice president. The International Sunshine Society, of which Seward was an officer, supported "Sunshine Homes" for the care and education of young children with a variety of disabilities. A Branch for the Blind was created in 1904 to provide services for blind children below the age of eight that existing public programs either ignored or had been housing with the mentally challenged. The society opposed the then broadly held misconception that blind babies were "feeble-minded".  A preliminary Sunshine Home for blind babies was established in a three-room New York City flat and other donated space.