Simms, Chatham H.

Born: 1814-10-01 Madison County, Kentucky

Died: 1890-02-17 Jacksonville, Illinois

Flourished: Jacksonville, Illinois

Chatham H. Simms was an early settler in Morgan County, Illinois. Son of Ignatius R. Simms, Chatham accompanied his parents from Kentucky to Morgan County, in the late 1820s. In January 1830, he was in the first class of students at Illinois College. In 1832, Chatham earned admittance to the U.S. Military Academy but did not graduate with his class in 1836. In May 1840, he married Anna Margaret Prosser, with whom he had three children. In 1846, he and Anna were living in Metamora, Illinois. In 1850, Chatham was a merchant in Jacksonville and owned real estate valued at $2,000. By 1860, he owned real estate valued at $7,000 and had a personal estate of $1,200.

Gravestone, Diamond Grove Cemetery, Jacksonville, IL; Charles M. Eames, comp., Historic Morgan and Classic Jacksonville (Jacksonville, IL: Daily Journal Steam Job Printing, 1885), 250; William Ward, List of Cadets Admitted into the United States Military Academy, West Point, N. Y., From its Origin Till September 1, 1886 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1887), 58; Register of Graduates and Former Cadets of the United States Military Academy 1802-1961, Civil War Centennial ed. (West Point, NY: West Point Alumni Association, 1961), 179; Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, Morgan County, 26 May 1840, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; Harry Wright Newman, The Maryland Semmes and Kindred Families (Baltimore, MD: Maryland Historical Society, 1956), 37-38; Ignatius Robert Simms to Chatham Hooe Simms, 10 April 1846, Martin Van Buren Culver Letters, Spared and Shared 4: Saving History One Letter at a Time, https://sparedshared4.wordpress.com/letters/1846-ignatius-robert-simms-to-chatham-hooe-simms/, accessed 3 December 2019; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Jacksonville, Morgan County, IL, 178; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Jacksonville, Morgan County, IL, 7.