Sim Jr., Joseph W.

Born: 1831-11-01 Ohio

Died: 1890-04-16 Urbana, Illinois

Flourished: 1853 to 1890 Urbana, Illinois

Joseph W. Sim, Jr., attorney, was born near Mount Vernon, in Knox County, Ohio. He was educated in the local schools and attended the Fredericktown Academy in his native state for one year. Late in 1853 Sim settled in Urbana, Illinois, where he served as principal of the school there for one term. He took up the study of law in the spring of 1854 in the law office of his brother-in-law, William N. Coler, and qualified at the bar two years later. Sim partnered with Coler as the firm of Coler & Sim for two years, then Jairus C. Sheldon joined the partnership and it became Coler, Sim, & Sheldon until 1858, when Sim left the firm to practice on his own. After about a year, he formed the partnership of Sim & Cunningham with Joseph O. Cunningham, and continued as an attorney until around 1866, when he retired from the law to take up farming. Sim encountered Abraham Lincoln in numerous cases in the Champaign County Circuit Court. At the time of the 1860 census, he owned real estate valued at $10,000 and possessed person property worth $6,000. Politically, Sim was initially a Whig with abolitionist sympathies. Following the dissolution of the Whig Party, he was a supporter of John C. Fremont in the election of 1856, and from that time on was a Republican. Sim served two one-year terms as mayor of Urbana, from 1864 to 1866. He married Sarah Ann Busey in 1857 and the pair had four children who survived to adulthood. In religion, Sim was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Milton W. Mathews and Lewis A. McLean, Early History and Pioneers of Champaign County (Urbana, IL: Champaign County Herald, 1886), 89-90; Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, Champaign County, 25 June 1857, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; For Lincoln’s cases involving Sim, search Participant, “Sim Jr. Joseph W.,” and “Sim, Joseph W.,” Martha L. Benner and Cullom Davis et al., eds., The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln: Complete Documentary Edition, 2d edition (Springfield: Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, 2009), http://www.lawpracticeofabrahamlincoln.org; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Urbana, Champaign County, IL, 601; The Champaign Daily Gazette (IL), 16 April 1890, 1:3; The Champaign Daily News (IL), 13 August 1910, 7:2; Gravestone, Mount Hope Cemetery and Mausoleum, Urbana, IL.