George Melville Seiders was born in Union, Maine on January 15, 1844, the son of a farmer.
He attended public schools in that town until at the age of eighteen, he enlisted in B Company of the Twenty-fourth Maine infantry taking part in the campaign on the Mississippi where he almost died of typhoid fever.
After being mustered out in August of 1863, he returned to his father’s farm but, finding agriculture no longer of interest, he moved to Portland and worked for a while in a machine shop until he decided to obtain a good education.
For the next six years Seiders tenaciously pursued his goal while teaching at various schools to support himself. After graduating from Bowdoin in the class of 1872, he taught for four years before moving to North Yarmouth and reading law with Thomas B. Reed.
He was admitted to the bar in 1878 and continued a successful law practice in Portland for the remainder of his career. Elected to represent North Yarmouth and Yarmouth in the Maine House in 1878 he did not run for reelection, choosing instead to move to Portland to practice law.
In 1892 Mr. Seiders was elected to the Maine Senate and reelected two years later, serving as Senate President in his second term.
An interesting, if unflattering description of Seiders can be found in William R. Pattangall’s "Maine’s Hall of Fame."