Henry Simmons (1805 - 1856)

Born 1805 in Barnwell County, South Carolina

Ancestors

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Silver Creek Baptist Church

Biography

Born in Barnwell, South Carolina on 8 March 1805 to Richard Simmons and Ann Tyler. Henry married Louisa. He passed away on 20 March 1865.

Henry Simmons was a small boy when his parents came to what is now Pike County, Mississippi, in 1811 or 1812. When Henry was nine years old his father went away as a soldier to Alabama and never came back. Henry’s father, Richard, died at a military camp north of the City of Mobile. His mother, Ann Tyler Simmons, did not remarry but her family in South Carolina sent her a couple of slaves to help with the crops. She continued to manage the farm with five young sons and five daughters.

In 1826, when he was 21 years old, Henry helped organize Salem Baptist Church some twelve miles from his home near what later became the town of Magnolia. In 1828 he was received by letter into the Silver Creek Baptist Church near his home. Most of his family attended the Silver Creek Church. In 1831, when he was 26 years old, he was elected clerk of this church. He served as delegate to the local association three times between 1833 and 1836.

In 1834 he and his wife joined the Bogue Chitto Baptist Church in northern Pike County and about six months later the church licensed him to preach. In July 1835 he and his wife returned to the Silver Creek Church where in 1837 he was ordained to the ministry. In July 1838 he was on the presbytery that organized the Mt Zion Baptist Church a short distance from his mother’s home. For this purpose ten members of the Silver Creek Church were granted letters of dismissal. Most of the ten were close relatives of Henry. Henry stayed as a member and trustee of the Silver Creek Church and helped patent the forty acres on which the present church building stands.

In November 1838 he and seven other members of the Silver Creek Church were given letters of dismissal and again he moved to the northern part of Pike County where he may have been involved with the Bogue Chitto church. However by 1860 he and his wife had moved to near Toro in Sabine Parish on the western border of Louisiana. He had a number of relatives there who settled around the Mt Carmel church. These included the Sibley family and George W Addison. It is possible that Henry and his wife traveled to Sabine Parish with a nephew, Richard J Simmons and his family.

He was welcomed by the local Baptist association when it met in Anacoco in 1859. He and his wife were received by letter into the Toro Baptist Church, east of Florien, in February 1859 and were dismissed in September 1864. By 1862 he was the pastor of the Pleasant Hill church. In November 1863 he helped organize the Mt Carmel church and accepted the call to be its pastor as well. By then he was in his late fifties.

Henry died on 20 March 1865 while serving in Sabine Parish. He left no children and it is not known where he is buried. ^[1]

At Silver Creek

“ Richard Simmons and Nancy Ann Simmons’s fifth child, Henry, was a church clerk and later a minister of the Gospel. When he was 21 he was involved in organizing a Baptist church near what became the Town of Magnolia some 30 years later. When he was 26, he was elected clerk of the Silver Creek Baptist Church. Silver Creek was the nearest church to the Simmons farm. It was about eight miles due east. The fact that Henry was entrusted with the job of church clerk meant that he was thought to be able to read as well as write. He was instructed by the Church to get a Bible, a hymn book and a book in which to record the minutes of the church business meetings. A year later, in 1833, he and a committee of four men, including the previous clerk of the church, were instructed to transcribe the minutes of the church from the old book to the new one. In 1834, the committee reported back that they had given up the task, as the old minutes were found to be very brief and indefinite and, perhaps, illegible. In 1835, Henry was once again named clerk of the church. In both 1835 and 1836 he was chosen as a delegate to the Mississippi Baptist Association from the Silver Creek Church. “ ^[2] 1849, Henry Simmons (Silver Creek Baptist Church clerk) jointly received a multi-patentee patent along with Silver Creek Church along with Rev. Jesse Crawford, Rev. Reason Burns, and Rev. Jeremiah Smith III. They comprised the buying group for the government land patents.

Sources

1. ↑ Geneology pages 1-13.
2. ↑ http://halfempty.com/georgemullins/chapter08.htm

• http://records.ancestry.com/Henry_Simmons_records.ashx?pid=40273662