Biographical and historical memoirs of Mississippi, embracing an authentic and comprehensive account of the chief events in the history of the state and a record of the lives of many of the most worthy and illustrious families and individuals, Vol. II, Part 121

Author: Goodspeed Brothers
Publication date: 1891
Publisher: Chicago, Goodspeed
Number of Pages: 1314

USA > Mississippi > Biographical and historical memoirs of Mississippi, embracing an authentic and comprehensive account of the chief events in the history of the state and a record of the lives of many of the most worthy and illustrious families and individuals, Vol. II > Part 121

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MEMOIRS OF MISSISSIPPI.

Mississippi in 1867, and located at Pass Christian, where she now resides. She has been postmistress at that place for eight years. C. A. Simpson was a child of eight years when he came to Mississippi, and received his education at Pass Christian college. He mastered the art of telegraphy, and was made station agent at the Pass. He filled this position for five years, and for the following fifteen years was in the employ of the Louisville & Nash- ville railroad. He has been prominently identified with the political history of Pass Chris- tian, having served as postmaster and as mayor. He turned the office of postmaster over to his mother in 1881, when he was appointed deputy collector of customs at Pascagoula. In 1885 he went out of office under President Cleveland, and for two years was lessee and manager of the railroad eating house at Hattiesburg, Miss. He then purchased an English ship and took her to British Honduras, where he sold her for a good sum of money. In 1889 he was appointed to the office he now fills. Mr. Simpson has always been a stanch repub- lican, and has worked zealously in the interest of his party. He was a delegate to the national convention of the republican party held in Chicago in 1880, 1884, 1888. Although he has hosts of friends among the democrats, he remains true to his convictions, and he is one of the republicans whom the press of Mississippi has uever attacked. In 1878 he was married to Miss Mary Duke, of Jasper county, Miss., and one child has been born to them, John. In 1881 he was married a second time to Miss Nettie Manders, and three children have been born to this union: Mary L., C. A., Jr., and Margarette. Mr. Simpson is a member of the Knights of Labor and of the Knights of Pythias. The family belong to the Roman Catholic church, and are highly respected throughout the community.

F. M. Simpson, farmer and merchant, residing four miles east of Courtland, Panola county, Miss., was the youngest of nine children born to Andrew and Mary (Murphy) Simp- son, both natives of Tennessee, where they spent their entire lives. The mother died when F. M. was but three weeks old and the father received his final summons in 1862. All the nine children grew to mature years, and three besides our subject are now living: Susan, wife of James Patterson, of Tennessee; Caroline, wife of John Madaris, of Arkansas, and Grace, wife of John Clamor, of Madison county, Tenn. Those deceased were: Jane, Nancy, Newton, Jasper and Jobn. F. M. Simpson was born in Carroll county, Tenn., in 1834, grew to manhood in his native state and in 1854, when about twenty years of age, he settled in Yalobusha county, where he bought and improved one hundred and sixty acres of land. From there he moved to Yazoo county four years later and was engaged in business for other people until the beginning of the war. In 1861 he espoused the cause of the Con- federacy and enlisted in the First Mississippi artillery, company B, under Capt. A. J. Herod, as a private and served five years. He was at Vicksburg, Holly Springs, Jackson, Miss., and many other engagements. He was captured at Port Hudson, retained at Enter- prise until exchanged, and was then assigned to heavy artillery at Mobile, Ala., where he remained until the surrender. In July, 1865, he married Miss Laura J. Rice, daughter of P. L. Rice, and afterward resided in Tallahatchie county for about three years. He then removed to Courtland, Panola county, and for the first twelve years in this county he was engaged in merchandising and farming. In 1880 he settled on his present farm, consisting of one hundred and sixty acres, and in connection is also engaged in general merchandising, his annual sales amounting to from $10,000 to $12,000. His principal productions from his farm are corn and cotton. Mr. Simpson is also the owner of a dairy farm in Shelby county, Tenn., and has about thirty good Jersey and Holstein cows. In his political views Mr. Simpson affiliates with the democratic party, and he has been a member of the board of supervisors of Panola county. He is also a member of Stonewall Jackson Blue lodge No.

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332, at Courtland. To his marriage were born ten children: Mary F., wife of William Lanrance, of Hill county, Tex .; W. A., of Memphis; L. B., wife of George Baugh, of Memphis; Alonzo, Caskey, Pearl, Ada, Douglass, Bertha and Adonis, the seven youngest at home. Mr. and Mrs. Simpson are members of the Methodist church at Eureka and are lib- eral contributors to the same, as indeed they are to all worthy enterprises.

Judge Horatio Fleming Simrall, ex-chief justice of the state of Mississippi, was born near Shelbyville, Shelby county, Ky., February 6, 1818. Prior to the Revolutionary war James Simrall, his grandfather, immigrated to America from Scotland, settling in Virginia. He served in the war for independence and rose to the rank of captain, and after the close of the war returned to Virginia, where he spent the remainder of his life. He left three sons and one daughter. The eldest of this family was a son, James, born near Winchester, Va., where he grew to maturity and married Rebecca Graham, a native of Lancaster county, Penn., who had removed when a child with her parents to Virginia. Immediately following their marriage the young couple emigrated to Kentucky. The perilous journey was made in wagons and on horseback, and consumed considerable time, and severely tried the fortitude on the part of those undertaking it, as the country was infested with murderous bands of savages who did not hesitate to attack emigrant trains. Mr. Simrall and his wife located in Shelby county, Ky., about a mile from the city of Shelbyville, then but a flourishing village. There, surrounded by the dangers, and enjoying but the primitive advantages of the early times, they took up their permanent residence. There Mr. Simrall died, about 1823, aged about fifty-eight years. He was a prominent citizen in Shelby county, and was elected from that county to the state legislature, and was at the time of his death a general of the state inilitia. He raised and commanded a battalion of cavalry in the War of 1812, and served in the northwestern frontier, and during his service he contracted rheumatism which ultimately caused his death. His widow survived him a number of years, her death having occurred at Louisville, Ky., in 1871. To James Simrall and wife were born five sons and one daughter, of whom our subject is the only survivor. He is the youngest son and the fifth child in order of birth. He was but a small child when his father died, and his mother soon after- ward removed to Shelbyville. There he grew to maturity. His early education becoming the especial care of his mother, who was an earnest Christian woman whose moral training exerted a powerful influence for good upon his after days. When of sufficient age he attended a select school in Shelbyville, taught by an efficient schoolmaster from New England, and continued his studies there until his seventeenth year, when he became a student at Hanover college, at Hanover, Ind., and there remained one year. Returning to his home at Shelby- ville, he became a tutor at the school he had attended. When pursuing his studies at Shelby- ville he had, as classmates and intimate associates, Bland Ballard and Caleb Logan, a near relative of Gen. John A. Logan. These friends, after much deliberation and consultation, chose the law as a profession and furnished a striking example of the result of determination and effort. Bland Ballard became district judge of the United States for the district of Ken- tucky, holding this position at the time of his death; Caleb Logan acquired prominence at the bar of Kentucky, and became judge of the chancery court of Louisville, and Mr. Sim- rall filled, in a most exemplary manner, the highest judicial position in Mississippi. He began reading law, while continuing bis services as tutor in the school at Shelbyville, in the office of Johnston & McHenry, a prominent firm of attorneys there. In 1838 he attended the law department of Transylvania university, at Lexington, Ky., and upon returning home he stopped at Frankfort, where he successfully passed an examination before the court of appeals of Kentucky, and was licensed to practice in all the courts of the state. Late in the fall of

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1838 he came to Mississippi, making the journey by boat. He stopped at Natchez. and early in 1839 located at Woodville, Wilkinson county, where he opened a law office and soon became a prominent figure in legal circles. The bar of that section was particularly a strong one. There appeared men who have become noted in the South as jurists and able expound- ers of the law. Among them, and with whom Judge Simrall was closely associated, were James Walker, who afterward became circuit judge; John Henderson, who afterward represented this state in the United States senate; William H. Dillingham, an accomplished lawyer; the late Judge Hiram Cassedy, Hon. John I. Lamkin, and Hon. David W. Hurst, all of whom were noted for their ability, and of whom personal sketches are given elsewhere. At Natchez were Gen. John A. Quitman: Samuel Boyd, at that time one of the ablest law- yers in the state; Eli Montgomery, and John T. McMurran, and others of prominence. During the period from 1846 to 1848 he represented Wilkinson county in the state legislature. During his term there he worked with characteristic energy for the passage of a bill establish- ing a public-school system in the state. In this, however, he was defeated, but he succeeded in securing the establishment of a system of public education in Wilkinson county, which continued in operation until succeeded by the present system. The system he introduced was supported by the funds derived from the lands donated by congress in the various town- ships for primary education, supplemented by connty taxation. In 1857 he was invited to the law professorship in the University of Louisville, and removing to that city he filled that position with honor until the outbreak of the Civil war. In the summer of 1861 he returned with his family to Wilkinson connty, Miss., where he still owns a plantation. Shortly after his arrival there he received a telegraphic communication from Bowling Green, Ky., stating that he had been elected lieutenant-governor of state government, which had been established in the southern portion of the state, in sympathy with the Confederacy, and invited his . return to that state. Upon his arrival at Bowling Green he found General Johnston's army retreating from Kentucky, which necessarily interrupted the designs of this newly established government, and rendered its continuance impossible. The excitement of the war having passed, he resumed the practice of his profession at Woodville, remaining there until 186.7, when he removed to Vicksburg, and there successfully continued his practice. During this time the courts of the state were being superceded and the administration of justice seri- ously interfered with by the military tribunal, whose rulings were ofttimes arbitrary and unconstitutional in this state, and Judge Simrall spent much of his time in the defense of per- sons unjustly tried before these court martials, contending that the law of the state should be administered by her courts alone, and that the court martial could not, with any sense of justice, punish a citizen for any act not designated as a crime in the code of the state, based upon her accepted constitution, and in this opinion he was upheld by the Federal judge, Robert A. Hill, and also by the department of justice at Washington, and this view of the case was established by the United States district judge who, at Judge Simrall's solicitation, released, on a writ of habeas corpus, parties who had been confined in the state penitentiary upon the sentence of the military tribunal for an offense not so punishable by the law of the land. The Judge had many important cases before the military tribunal, of which Gen. Adelbert C. Ames, afterward governor of the state, was the presiding officer. In 1870 he was appointed to the supreme bench, at the solicitation and earnest request of the leading members of the bar of the state, and he occupied the position nine years, the last five years as chief justice. His associates were Judges Peyton and Tarbell, and, for the last five years. Judges Josiah A. P. Campbell and Ham. Chalmers.

As a member of this court, Judge Simrall's record has been a most exemplary and hon-

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orable one, reflecting credit not only upon himself, but upon his state. The Civil war had interfered to a great extent with the affairs of the court, and as chief justice, he found an overcrowded docket and much delayed work. With characteristic energy, he applied himself to the duties of discharging the large number of cases, and won a distinction for his efficiency. It is a fact worthy of mention that no decision rendered by this court while he was at its head was ever reversed by the supreme court of the United States, although many were sub)- mitted to that body. The energy displayed did not in any way interfere with the efficiency and thoroughness of the court, for it won the confidence and admiration of the bar of the state. Particularly have his efforts been of great value to the people of the state in his decisions rendered upon equity and constitutional law, and decisions systematizing the laws of the state relative to the rights of married women in the holding of separate estates. One of the most important cases which occupied his attention was the famous lottery case of the state of Mississippi vs. Moore, which was probably the first case decided in any of the states to uphold the power of the legislature to repeal lottery grants and privileges. In this case just cited, the legislature of Mississippi in consideration of a sum of money to be devoted to edu- cational purposes, had granted a charter to a lottery company. A subsequent legislature repealed this charter, and the case came before the supreme court of the state. Judge Simrall, after a careful review of the case, rendered a decision upholding the last act of the legislature, holding that private or corporate interests, even though instituted by a special act of the legislature, were, and rightfully should be, subservient to the public good, and as the con- tinuance of this lottery would be damaging in its effects upon the public morals, he rendered his decision accordingly. The case was taken to the supreme court of the United States on a writ of error, and in that court his decision was unanimously sustained. Another notable case of great importance to the people of the country was that of Hawkins vs. Carroll county. The question under consideration was one of the validity of bonds voted for the improvement of the county, when all her voters were not represented at the polls. The lower courts had interpreted the provision requiring a two-thirds majority as applying to the number of votes cast. Judge Simrall ruled that the proper interpretation was that a two-thirds vote of the qualified voters of the county was necessary to grant bonds, and in this decision he was also sustained by the supreme court of the United States. The principle of this interpretation was a new one, and was afterward sustained by the supreme court in a case taken before it on a similar ruling from one of the Western states. In another case brought to recover dam- ages for cotton burned during the war by order of the Confederate military commander, the owner of the cotton sought to recover damages from the person who set fire to the cotton, but the Judge ruled that as this was an act of war, the individual could not be held responsible for the same, and in this he was sustained by the supreme court. Adelbert C. Ames had been elected governor of the state, and had taken his seat as such. The legislature introduced articles of impeachment against him, and the constitution requiring the chief justice to act as president of the senate when that body was sitting in impeachment trials, this duty fell upon the shoulders of Judge Simrall. In this matter the Judge was devoid of any per- sonal feelings and losing all personality, was prepared to give Governor Ames an impartial trial, but the resignation of the governor made the trial unnecessary. After the Judge had retired from the supreme bench, in 1879 he returned to Vicksburg, where for the following year he attended to his practice, and then retired. In 1881 he located on his plantation in Warren county, where he now resides, choosing to spend the remainder of his life in quietness and domestic enjoyment. In 1870 he was appointed trustee of the University of Mississippi by Governor Alcorn, and his appointment was confirmed by the senate. Again, in 1876,

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he was reappointed by Governor Stone, and again in 1882, and in 1888 by Governor Lowry, and is now the oldest trustee of the university in number of years of service. He is also serving his second term as trustee of the University of the South at Sewanee, Tenn. In 1881 the University of Mississippi conferred upon him the title of LL. D. In 1867 at the reor- ganization of the University of Mississippi after the war, he was tendered the professorship of law, which he declined, on account of pressing business at home. In 1890 he was unani- monsly elected a member of the constitutional convention of the state, acting as chairman of the judiciary committee, and was the author of the report of that committee as to the constitutional right of the convention to adjust the right of suffrage, notwithstanding the condition in the act of readmission of the state by the congress of the United States in 1870, that the state should not alter or change the franchise article in the constitution of 1869, abridging or denying suffrage to any person by that constitution entitled to it. The argument of the report was that the state was sovereign over the question and condition of suffrage, and that. congress was without right to impose conditions of suffrage upon one state not common to all. He also reported the judiciary system which was afterward adopted by that convention. Judge Simrall has always taken an active interest in all movements of public interest, par- ticularly in the improvement of the Mississippi river, and was president of a committee to properly lay before congress the necessity of such improvements, and the constructions of levees to protect the lower lands from overflow, and was a member of a committee of seven chosen to proceed to Washington and bring the matter before congress. February 22, 1842, he married Lydia Ann Newell, of Wilkinson county, and this union resulted in the birth of five children, three still living. The family are members of the Episcopal church of Vicks- burg, and for years, the Judge has been a member of the vestry. Politically, the Judge is a republican on national matters, but in state affairs votes with the people of the state, the democratic ticket. He is a venerable appearing man, his hair being snow white, but the brilliancy of his intellect is undimmed, and his memory as active as ever.

Thomas M. Sims, an old and prominent citizen of Panola county, Miss., was the fifth of eleven children born to David and Nancy (Strong) Sims, both natives of Virginia. His great- grandfather Sims emigrated from the Emerald isle to America and settled in the Old Dominion. David Sims followed planting in Virginia, was a man of moderate means but a good, sub- stantial, honorable citizen, and had no political aspirations. He was a soldier in the War of 1812. He died when about sixty-eight years of age and his wife survived him a number of years later. Thomas M. Sims was born in Louisa county, Va., on the 8th of February, 1819, and passed his boyhood and youth in that state. His advantages for an education were limited, but experience and observation have taught him much. He left the state of his nativity in 1836, went to Fayette county, Tenn., and after remaining there one year removed to Marshall county, Miss., where he resided for five years. From there he went to Tippah county, remained eight years engaged in the tailor's trade, and then went to Oakland, Yalobusha county, where he continued his trade in connection with gents' furnishing business. In 1855 he came to Panola county, and here he has since resided, engaged in planting. In 1879 he began mer- chandising in Pope, continued this for seven years and then retired from business, since which time he has lived a retired life. He is a man of pleasant, cheerful disposition, is upright and honorable in all his relations with the public, and is universally respected. He served in the war from 1864 until the close, but was never in any regular engagement. He was a member of the board of supervisors for four years, and in 1877 he was nominated for the legislature, but as the republicans were in the majority and he ran on the democratic ticket, he was defeated by a few votes. He was married in 1843 to Miss Eunice Rogers, who was born in Tennessee

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and who was the daughter of Thomas Rogers, a native of Tennessee. Mrs. Sims died in 1864 leaving five children: Mary M., now Mrs. Shields, widow of Joseph Shields; Lou T., now Mrs. E. P. Collins; John I. (deceased); Frank C., in Texas, and Sue N., now Mrs. George Tinen. Mr. Sims and family are members of the Methodist church. He is a pioneer of Mississippi and has served faithfully in his sphere.

William H. Sims is a Georgian by birth, having emigrated to Mississippi from the former state just before the opening of the late Civil war. He was born in the village of Lexington, Oglethorpe county, about fifty years ago, in that middle section of Georgia which has given to the state her greatest sons. Oglethrope was the home of William H. Crawford and Thomas W. Cobb, the latter a relative, on his mother's side, to the subject of our sketch. The adjoin- ing county of Wilkes was the home of Robert Toombs. The adjoining county of Clarke, where Henry Grady was born, was the home of Thomas R. R. Cobb, Georgia's great lawyer, and Howell Cobb, his brother, secretary of the treasury under President Buchanan. Taliaferro county, hard by, was the home of Alex. H. Stephens; while Greene county, near it, furnished Georgia a United States senator in the person of Crosby Dawson. All of these now notable citizens of Georgia were in the habit of gathering twice a year at the sitting of the circuit court at Lexington Courthouse, and the aspiring youth was wont to attend upon their great speeches at the bar or upon the hustings. Young Sims was among this number. He was the son of Dr. James Saunders Sims and Amanda Booker Moore, both of Virginia extraction. His father, Dr. Sims, was a physician of great learning and eminent in his profession in that portion of the state. His practice was not confined to his own county, but he was sent for from far and near in critical cases by the sick of surrounding regions. By middle life he had acquired such a competency through his professional success, that he retired from active professional work and gave himself to his books and scientific farming.

The early schooling of W. H. Sims was obtained at Meson academy, at Lexington. When a little more than sixteen he entered the junior class of the University of Georgia; and as he frequently regretted, graduated before he was nineteen. Shortly after graduating he became a student of law at Athens, Ga., in the office of Thomas R. R. Cobb, and in less than a year was admitted to the bar at Lexington. Being young in years and anxious to acquire greater learning in his profession before entering upon his duties, he spent a year at Cambridge, Mass., in attendance upon the Harvard law school. Returning home to Georgia, he lingered at his old home, casting about where he should enter upon the field of professional labor, and desiring to go West, he decided to settle at Columbus, Miss., whither he went in the latter part of 1859. Here he found many Georgians from the region of his birth, the Baldwins, the Claytons, the Whitfields, the Harrises, the Billupes, the Moores, the last two families being nearly related to him on his mother's side. After a few prelim- inary months of reading in the office of William S. Barry, at Columbus, to acquaint himself with the local statutes and decisions, W. H. Sims was numbered in the year 1860, among the young attorneys of the Columbus bar, then distinguished as one of the strongest in Missis- sippi, and nearly all of whom have been gathered to their fathers at this writing. James T. Harrison, Charles R. Crusoe, George R. Clayton, William S. Barry, Henry Dickenson, Isham Harrison, Mckinney Irion and Beverly Matthews, were among the most distinguished members of the local bar at that time, not one of whom is now living. About this time the war clouds commenced gathering. The country was agitated with political discussions brought about by the allignment of the North and the South in separate political parties. The election of Mr. Lincoln determined the leaders in Mississippi to seek redress for her anticipated ills outside of the Federal Union. In December, 1860, Jefferson Davis and L.

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Biographical and historical memoirs of Mississippi, embracing an authentic and comprehensive account of the chief events in the history of the state and a record of the lives of many of the most worthy and illustrious families and individuals, Vol. II, Part 121

Author: Goodspeed Brothers Publication date: 1891 Publisher: Chicago, Goodspeed Number of Pages: 1314

Author: Goodspeed Brothers
Publication date: 1891
Publisher: Chicago, Goodspeed
Number of Pages: 1314