SIMMS
SIMON
19, 1826, to Anna Malcolm, daughter of Othnie
J. Giles of Charleston, S.C. On April 17, 1827.
he was admitted to the bar. Simms's chief in-
terest was in literary matters, and he felt that the
great need of the Soutliern states and especially
of South Carolina, was a literary journal. He ac-
cordingly started a paper, The Tablet or Southern
Monthly Literary Gazette, Sept. 6, 1828, but he
was poorly equipped in both experience and
means, and the paper was short-lived. On Jan.
1, 1830, in company with E. S. Duryea, a Charles-
ton printer, Simms bought the City Gazette,
which he edited and published until June 7, 1832.
His wife died that same year, and Sirams left
Charleston, visiting Massachusetts and New York,
the two literary oases of America, starting life-
long friendships with Bryant and the other
literati of the North. Simms returned to
Charleston, but it impressed him as a "city of
tombs " and in 1833 he removed to New Haven,
Conn. The North was not congenial to Simms's
peculiarly Southern nature, and in 1835 he re-
turned South, settling in Barnwell, S.C. He was
married to Chevillette, daughter of Nash Roach
of Barnwell, who bi'ought him as a dowry a
large plantation and many negroes. He had been
writing romances up to this time, but for the
next eight years, he wrote practically none. He
became editor-in-chief of the Magnolia or South-
ern Monthly in June, 1842, but after struggling
along, the magazine was discontinued in June,
184B. In January, 1815, he started the Southern
and Western Monthly Magazine, which in Jan-
uary, 1846, was absorbed by the Southern Lit-
erary Messenger, and in March, 1849, he was made
editor of the Southern Quarterly Revieio. In the
meantime he had been active in politics, and
during the nullification excitement of 1833 sided '
with Jackson rather tlian Calhoun; but as he saw
the abolition sentiment gaining ground in the
North, he feared for the welfare of the South
where prosperity was so largely dependent on
slavery. He represented Barnwell county in the
state legislature, 1844-46, and in 1846 lacked only
one vote of being elected lieutenant-governor of
his state. He was an active secessionist in 1860
and was closely identified with the leaders in his
own state, one of his sons serving in the Con-
federate States army. In 1863 his wife died, and
of the fourteen children that had been born to
liim, only six were living, and when, in 1865, he
saw Columbia destroyed before the invading
army and his house marauded, he, the most san-
guine of all the Confederates, was forced to
acknowledge the cause lost. Then it seemed to
him that all pleasure had gone out of life, and
though he accomplished some literary work after
that time, it was done for much needed money
and not for love of the task, and it lacks the
artistic beauty of his other works. He is the
author of many poems, romances, biographies
and histories, the most significant of which are the
following: poetry: Monody on General Charles
Cotesworth Pinckney (1825); Lyrical and Other
Poems (1827); TJie Vision of Cortes. Cain and
Other Poems (1829); TJie Tri-Color (1830); Ata-
lantis (1832); Southern Passages and Pictures
(1839); Donna Florida (1843); Groujjed Thoughts
and Scattered Fancies (1845); Areytos (1846);
Charleston and her Satirists (1848); Lays of the
Palmetto (1848); Sabbath Lyrics (1849); TJie
City of the Silent (1850). Dramas: Norman
Maurice (1851), Michael Bonhum (1852), and
Benedict Arnold (1863). Romances: Martin Faber
(1833); The Book of My Lady (1833); Guy Rivers
(1834); The Yemassee (1835); The Partisan (1835)
MelUchampe (1836); Richard Hurdis (1838): Carl
Werner (1838); Pelayo (1838); Damsel of Darien
(1839); Border Beagles (1840); The Kinsman
(1841); Confession (1841); Beauchampe (1842);
The Prima Donna (1844); Castle Dismal (1845).;
Helen Halsey (1845); Count Julian (1845); Wig-
wam and Cabin (1846); Katherine Walton (1851);
The Golden Christmas ( 1852); As Good as a Comedy
(1852); The Sword and Distaff (1852); Vasconse-
los (1854); Southward Ho (1854); Charlemont
(1856); Eiitaio (1856); The Cassique of Kiaivha
(1859); Joscelyn (1867); The Cub of the Pan-
ther (1869); Voltmeir (1869). History and biog-
raphy: The History of South Carolina (1840);
Life of Francis Marion (1845); Life of Captain
John Smith (1846); The Life of Chevalier Bayard
(1847); The Life of Nathanael Greene (1849); The
Lily and the Totem, or the Huguenots in Florida
(1850); and South Carolina in the Revolutionary
War (1853). In 1865 he published a pamphlet
on the destruction of Columbia. S.C, which was
in part republished in " The War between the
States " by Alexander H. Stephens, vol. II. (1870).
He was also a voluminous contributor to maga-
zines. He received the honorary degree of LL.D.
He died in Charleston, S.C, June 11, 1870.
SIMON, Joseph, U. S. senator, was born in Germanj" in 1851. His parents emigrated to the United States in 1852 and settled in Portland, Oregon, in 1857, where he attended the public schools and was admitted to the bar in 1872. He was citj' councilman, 1877-80; secretary of the Republican state central committee in 1878; chair- man of the committee in 1880, 1884, and 1886 and a delegate to the Republican national convention held at Minneapolis, Minn., in 1892, serving on the national committee for Oregon. He was state senator from Multnomah county, 1880-88, and 1894-98, and was chosen president of the senate at the sessions of 1889, 1891, 1895, 1897. and 1898. He was elected U.S. senator, Oct. 6. 1898, for the vacant term expiring March 8, 1903. He
