Robert Sims (1783 - 1842)

Born 14 May 1783 in Winston-Salem North Carolina, United States

Ancestors

Husband of Frances Howard (Merritt) Sims — married 14 Feb 1813 in North Carolina

Descendants

Died 21 Mar 1842 at age 58 in Huttons Hollow, Wayne, Tennessee, United States

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Biography

. Robert Sims, the oldest child of Pariss and Keziah Royster Sims, was born in Salisbury District, near Salem (WinstonSalem) N. C., May 14, 1783. He married Frances Howard Merritt, an orphan of English ancestry, Feb. 14, 1813, in North Carolina. She was born March 7, 1797; died in Tennessee Nov. 28, 1871.

Robert SIMS - b. May 14, 1783, near Salem (now Winston-Salem), Salisbury District, NC; d. Mar. 21, 1842, Hutton Hollow, Wayne Co., TN; bur. Brown Cemetery, Wayne Co., TN. Brown Cemetery is on a knoll on the east side of the Hutton Hollow, about a mile from Hardin's Creek and two miles from Philadelphia Baptist Church. The son of Pariss SIMS and Keziah ROYSTER, Robert was in Stokes Co., NC at the time of the 1790 and 1800 censuses, and left NC Nov. 1, 1819 for Giles Co., TN, settling in the vicinity of Lynnville; moved from Giles Co. to Wayne Co. in 1834, settling on the John LAWSON place on Bear Creek, branch of Weatherford fork of Indian Creek; having trouble with a neighbor over a dog getting in the milk in the spring house he sold out and moved to Hardin's Creek where he died. Deed records of Wayne Co. show that the Bear Creek property, 55 acres in District 7 Range 10 Section 3, was purchased by Robert SIMS from Harrison CHRISTIAN on Feb. 4, 1837 for $360. Robert sold the property to his son Matthew J. SIMS on Jun. 10, 1837 for $600, and Matthew deeded the land on Jun. 29, 1839 to James A. LAWSON for the same amount. He appears in the 1840 census of Wayne Co., TN. The 1860 and 1870 Agriculture Schedules of Wayne County, TN includes the farms of three children and seven grandchildren of Robert Sims and Frances Howard Merritt. Married Feb. 14, 1813, NC.

On November 1, 1819, when their third child, Robert William Sims, was four months old, the family left North Carolina for Tennessee where they settled on Lynn Creek in Giles County, near where his father had settled in 1807. In 1833, after the death of his parents, Robert moved, with all of his family, to Wayne County and settled on Bear Creek in what today is known as Lutts Community. He purchased the farm of John Lawson, a pioneer settler in the area.

Bear Creek, a prong of Indian Creek, is South-west, some eight or ten miles, from the old Sims Post Office Community in the upper Indian Creek Valley, where the family finally settled, and where the writer was born in 1892. Florence, Alabama, and the Tombigbee River area in Mississippi, where three of Robert's younger brothers, Matthew, John and William, settled, are some 30 miles to the South from the Indian and Bear Creek sections, Wayne being a border county to both Alabama and Mississippi.

Wayne County had been Creek Indian territory until the first white settlers came in 1815. Zachariah Thompson, Jesse and Baker Cypert, ancestors on my mother's side, settled on Indian Creek in 1818. Thompson built a two story log house on what was later known as the Copeland farm owned by my father from 1900 to 1909. The county was organized in 1819 and Jesse Cypert was a member of the first county court.

The Natchez Trace, followed by Andrew Jackson and his men to the Battle of New Orleans in the war of 1812, now being developed into a National Parkway between Nashville, Tenn., and Natchez, Miss., passes through Wayne county, near the headwaters of both Indian and Bear Creeks. The Trace, with its Trading Posts and Inns, was an early venture in Inter-State road building and was of considerable economic benefit to new territory. After the U. S. Government acquired Natchez from the Spanish in 1798, the Trace was cleared as a communications line between frontier settlements in Mississippi and Tennessee. It was traveled by early settlers, circuit-riding preachers, teachers, soldiers, Post riders and robbers. In 1800, the U. S. Government inaugurated mail service on the Trace between Nashville and Natchez, once a month each way. By 1816 the mail service had increased to three trips per month. A marker on the Trace, now a completed National Parkway, through Wayne and Lawrence counties, reads:

"This early venture in Inter-State road building produced little more than a snake infested, mosquito beset, robber haunted, Indian pestered passage through the forest. The pious lamented it. The impious cussed it; all found it a trial of strength and patience. When the trail became so waterlogged that an ox-cart could not be pulled through, travelers cut new paths through the adjoining woods."

The above serves as a good description of the early trails that our ancestors followed into the frontier country. The Bear Creek valley in which Robert Sims settled with his family in 1833 heads at the Trace, a few miles west of the McGlamery Stand (an early Trading Post and Inn on the Trace), near the present town of Collinwood. Indian and Dry Creeks and Waterfall Branch, Sims country for more than a hundred years, head at the Trace which follows a water-shed ridge. Cypress Inn, another noted Trading Post on the Trace, now a village with a Post Office near the Alabama line, is some eight miles South-west of the old McGlamery Stand. From there the Trace stretches into Alabama and Mississippi, where the younger brothers of Robert Sims settled. Soon after Robert Sims settled on Bear Creek, trouble developed--one of his boys shot a neighbor's dog that had gotten into the family milk supply in. the springhouse. After a lawsuit over the incident he sold his farm and moved to Hardin's Creek where he bought a small farm in what has long been known as the Hutton Hollow. There he died, March 21, 1842. He is buried in the Brown graveyard, on a knoll on the east side of the Hollow, about a mile from Hardin's Creek and two miles South-west of the Philadelphia Baptist Church of today.

Soon after his death, his widow and younger children moved to Indian Creek, near her oldest son, Matthew J. Sims, who had married and settled there. There she died at the home of her youngest son, Abraham Martin Sims, November 28, 1871. She is buried in the Sims burying ground on top of a high hill on the old home place of Shields Sims,

Children of Robert and Franky Sims

Sarah M. 'Sallye' - b. Jan. 9, 1814, Stokes Co., NC; d. Apr. 27, 1885, Muscogee, Creek Nation, Indian Territory. Married C. M. LAWSON. Matthew Joseph - b. Jun. 9, 1816, Salem, NC; d. Jan. 16, 1890, Wayne Co., TN; bur. Sims graveyard. [Sketch from Goodspeed] A farmer, school teacher, merchant in Waynesboro after the Civil War, and Circuit Court Clerk of Wayne County 1865-1875. Operated a tannery on the Green River. Matthew purchased 55 acres on Bear Creek from his father on Jun. 10, 1837, and deeded the same to James A. LAWSON on Jun. 29, 1839. Married Mar. 21, 1837 Dorothy Turley GREESON (b. Jan. 15, 1817; d. Aug. 9, 1896; bur. Sims graveyard), daughter of Henry GREESON and Betsy COOK, German emigrants to Bedford Co., TN, thence to Wayne County. The farms of Matthew and five of his children appear in the 1860 and 1870 Agriculture Schedules of Wayne County. Children: Hartwell Ebenezer John Shields [Sketch from Goodspeed] married Edith Melinda Caroline YOUNGBLOOD; Elizabeth married first William G. YOUNGBLOOD, and second Jim MCWILLIAMS; Matthew Joseph married Lydia Hannah J. YOUNGBLOOD; Robert Henry Clay [Sketch from Goodspeed] married Jemima Catharine COPELAND [photos]; Zachary Taylor married Sarah W. 'Sally' PHILLIPS; Sam Winfield Scott married first Mary HORTON, and second Alice BREWER; Dorothy A. 'Sis' married John TURMAN (great granddaughter Ruth SHACKLETT RUDY became a DAR member); Sarah Mahulda C. 'Hulda' married Josiah 'Joe' YOUNGBLOOD; Malinda T. 'Cricket' married first Frank HELTON, and second Mr. PULLEY; and perhaps Nancy E. Robert William - b. Jul. 8, 1819, NC; d. Dec. 10, 1905, Crockett Co., TN. Practiced law and farmed. Married first Dec. 10, 1843 Margaret Jane GREEN (four children), second about 1853 Nannie MITCHELL (two children), and third Sarah KING (three children). Children of Robert and Margaret: Virginia married Capt. William BIRDSONG; Dr. John Emmett; Lambertine 'Teen' married first Margaret Elizabeth KEY, and second Sally GIBSON; and Margaret Jane married William Jackson THOMPSON. Children of Robert and Harriet: Bascom; and Leona. Children of Robert and Sarah: Henry Kent married first Dora TAYLOR, and second Cora B. NANCE; Develemon 'Belle' married John C. COX; and another child. Abby Caroline - b. Jul. 3, 1822, Giles Co., TN; d. Aug. 14, 1886. Married Nov. 6, 1842 Joseph SUTHERLAND (b. Mar. 4, 1815, Lincoln Co., TN; d. Jun. 19, 1907, Benton Co., MO). They resided at Warsaw, MO. Children: Dr. William Walter married Annie Naomi Adelade NELSON; Martha 'Matt' Ann; Irene; Margaret; James Franklin married (granddaughter Mrs. Virginia SWEENEY is DAR member); and Marcus 'Mark' married. Frances Jane - b. Mar. 2, 1825, Giles Co., TN; d. Mar. 28, 1851; bur. King graveyard. Unmarried. Margaret 'Peggy' Ann - b. Oct. 19, 1827, Giles Co., TN; d. Jan. 29, 1901, Wayne Co., TN. [Sketch from Goodspeed] Married Aug. 22, 1846 John William YOUNGBLOOD (b. Mar. 7, 1819, Wayne Co., TN; d. Dec. 6, 1874, West Plains, Howell Co., MO), son of William YOUNGBLOOD and Edith REED. Their son Matthew was manager of the mercantile business of J. & H. Youngblood at Clifton, TN, which was established in Sep. 1885. Children: Louisa Caroline m. William J. HORTON; Mary Jane married Anderson LEE, a nephew of Gen. Robert E. LEE; James A. 'Jim'; Josiah 'Joe' m. Sarah Mahulda C. 'Hulda' SIMS, daughter of Matthew Joseph SIMS and Dorothy Turley GREESON; Matthew 'Matt'; Lydia T. 'Lizzie'; and Frances M. George Washington - b. Feb. 22, 1831, Giles Co., TN; d. Apr. 9, 1894, Mineral Wells, TX. One of first photographers in Wayne Co., TN. Married first Jul. 6, 1851 Sarah Jane WHITSON (b. 1820) and had children: Congressman Thetus Willrette SIMS married Nannie KITTRELL; Mary; and Alma. George married again and had additional children: Wesley; Asilie; Albert; and Victor. Abraham Martin 'Uncle Mart' - b. Jun. 13, 1834, Wayne Co., TN; d. Sep 29, 1913, Wayne Co., TN; bur. Sims graveyard. [Sketch from Goodspeed] Served as a private in the Tenth Tenn. Infantry in 1863. Abraham's farm is included in the 1860 Agriculture Schedule of Wayne County. Practiced law, farmed, and established the Sims, TN post office. He and his family were members of the Missionary Baptist Church. Married Sep. 26, 1875 Hannah STOOKSBERRY (b. Apr. 17, 1851; d. May 7, 1929; bur. Sims graveyard), daughter of Robert STOOKSBERRY and Jane SHARP. Children: Judge Joseph married Ora E. KING; Robert Martin married first Naomi SUDDUTH, and second Edith ROSS; Mary O.; Arthur died young; Zella Belle married Jasper T. BROMLEY; and Frances Jane. Martha A. - b. Mar. 11, 1839, Wayne Co., TN; d. Aug. 17, 1914, Lawrence Co., TN; bur. Sims graveyard, Wayne Co., TN. Unmarried.

Sources

• Sims Family Book