JOHN AMOS SIMONS

Sacramento County

Biographies

JOHN AMOS SIMONS

John Amos Simons, rancher, of Brighton Township, Sacramento County, was born March 15, 1836, in Ava, at that time the capital of Burmah, being the second son of Rev. Thomas Simons a Baptist missionary to Burmah. The father was born at Dofarnbach, Cardiganshire, Wales, July 15, 1801. Converted at the age of fifteen, he forthwith evidenced a strong purpose to devote himself to the service of religion. At twenty he came to the United States, landing in Charleston, South Carolina. Becoming connected with the Baptist Church, he was sent as teacher to the Creek Indians at Eaton, Georgia, in 1823. Desiring to become a preacher, he first studied for the ministry at Edgefield, South Carolina, and afterward at the Newton Theological Institute in Massachusetts, which he entered in 1829. Two years later he was appointed missionary to Burmah, and was ordained at Augusta, Georgia, December 18, 1831. He reached Maulmain, Burmah, January 1, 1833. Here he was married by Rev. Dr. Judson to Miss Caroline Jenks Harrington, of East Brookfield, Massachusetts, June 23, 1833. About the close of 1835 he removed to Ava, but after a few months’ residence he was obliged by political disturbances to leave that city and return to Maulmain. In 1843 Mrs. Simons died, leaving four children, with whom two years later the father returned to America. Having made provision for the education of his children, he went back to Burmah in 1847 to resume his missionary labors. In 1851 he married Miss Lydia Lillybridge, and they had two children, of whom one survives. In 1854 he removed to Prome, on the Irrawaddi, where he labored for twenty-two years, dying there February 19, 1876, after thirteen days’ illness, of cholera, or rather of the exhaustion which followed it. The older Brother of the subject of this sketch was born in December, 1834, at Maulnain, Burmah, and on the return to America, already mentioned, he was placed at school at West Boylston, Massachusetts. After completing his course of studies, graduating at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, he went to Georgia, among the early friends of his father, and taught school there for a time. He soon came North, however, and entered the law school at Albany, New York, and afterward the office of the law firm of Courtney & Cassidy. After a few years in Albany, through the influence of Mr. Courtney, he became assistant in the United States District Court in New York, under Daniel Dickinson, and subsequently under Pierpont; and when the latter became the Attorney-General of the United States, he was given the office of Assistant Attorney-General in the Court of Claims, and retained that position under successive administrations. Upon the inauguration of President Cleveland he voluntarily resigned, and in September, 1885, formed the law firm of McDonald, Simons & Bright, at Washington, District of Columbia. He died June 19, 1886, probably of overwork. The only daughter of the first Mrs. Simons, named Jane Olivia, returned to Burmah, married there, and there died of cholera. The younger brother, Charles Jenks Simons, is a physician in Chicago. The subject of this sketch, as before stated, came to America in 1845, at the age of nine. Sent to school with his brother Thomas at West Boylston, he did not exhibit a desire to study, and after a few months returned to his maternal relatives at East Brookfield. Here, with an uncle for a time, later with his grandparents, and afterward with a cousin who was a shoe manufacturer, he spent about six years. From the cousin he learned some little of the shoemaking trade. Meanwhile he ran away twice to Boston to go to sea, but was rejected as too young. At the age of fifteen he was induced by his older brother to take an academic course, which he proceeded to do, at Middleboro, Massachusetts; but he did not quite complete his course of four years, as an opportunity arose to satisfy his longing for going to sea. His imagination had been fired by his six months’ voyage from Burmah at the age of nine, while his judgment was not mature enough to discriminate between the position on shipboard of a boy passenger in the cabin and a “boy” before the mast. His illusion was now about to be dispelled. Taking leave of his relatives at East Brookfield, he went to Boston and shipped on the Challenger, under Captain Burgess, for a voyage around the world. The voyage to San Francisco was not specially eventful, they having encountered only one severe storm, in which, however, one man was lost and the sails were torn to shreds. He found the captain and second mate friendly, while he formed an aversion to the first mate. The voyage lasted four months and a half, and when he received his wages as a ship’s boy, amounting only to $21, he went ashore to try his fortune. This was in 1855, and he was nineteen. An ill-fortune he found it, both at that port and at Sacramento. Mining, in which his imagination had pictured millions, was hopeless. His money was soon exhausted and his spirits sank fathoms deep, finding himself penniless and without work. He haunted an employment office in Sacramento, and finally obtained a job, only to find himself defrauded of half the promised wages, receiving at the end of two weeks $10 instead of $20. With a heroic integrity that deserved good fortune, he paid $4 of that to the employment office as fees for the old job and a prospective one. Despairing of getting this, he struck out in search of a job. This he secured on the river, about ten miles below Sacramento, where he spent nearly two years in vain attempts at making a “raise” by manual labor. His discomfort was aggravated by an attack of fever and ague. Shortly after this he began a career as teacher. Amounting to fifteen years and extending over a period of twenty years, 1858 to 1878, his last school closing at Galt, in this county, on May 17, 1878. The five years interruption to his career as teacher was the period from 1864 to 1869, which he spent in Albany, New York, where he was identified with the bar after a course in the law school, and where he practiced for a few years. But the glorious climate of California lured him back, and he resumed his career as school-teacher, becoming also owner of a ranch of 160 acres, which has since been enlarged by recent purchase to 355 acres. June 15, 1876, Mr. Simons married Miss Fanny Prior, a native of El Dorado County, this State. She is the daughter of Harlow Prior, who was born in Hartford, Connecticut. They have one child, Jennie Belle, born June 8, 1879.

Transcribed by Karen Pratt.

Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of Sacramento County, California. Pages 531-533. Lewis Publishing Company. 1890.

Sacramento County Biographies