Cinthelia Ann Hearn and William Louis Simons must have known each other their whole lives. They were both born around 1830 in rural Todd County, Kentucky, and grew up in intertwined families who likely saw each other in church every Sunday. Cinthelia’s grandfather Asher Shelton had officiated the wedding of William’s parents, and the wedding of William’s uncle, too. When William’s father died in 1845 the Hearns and Sheltons may have attended the funeral.
In the 1850 Census, taken in June, the two families were living next door to each other. In August of that year, William swore out a Marriage Bond to get a license.
The other individual on the bond is the amusingly named Hugh Bonar Wilkins, William’s brother-in-law. I found it interesting that the bond was still for 50 pounds, not dollars. Three days later, on August 15, 1850, Cinthelia and William were married.
Cinthelia was eligible for marriage for the straightforward reason that she was over 18. William must have been a little under 18, because he needed the consent of an unreadable guardian.
What’s Happening?
What’s going on in the world as Cinthelia and William enter their adulthood in the 1850s? Anything?
- Everything was leading to war; the Fugitive Slave Act, the Dred Scott Decision, John Brown, just… everything.
- Abraham Lincoln was again practicing law in Springfield after a brief stint in Congress.
- Lieutenant Ulysses Grant was serving in California and Oregon, and in 1854 resigned from the Army.
- The end of the Mexican-American War brought California and Arizona into U.S. control.
- The Texas Republic was admitted to the Union.
- Elijiah Otis invented the safety elevator.
The Children
Cinthelia and William had six children:
- Alexander Frank (born 1851)
- William Hearn (1855) married Alice Dora Morris. These two were my ancestors, so more later.
- James Louis (1858) married Annie Lee Haggard in Texas, then moved to Oklahoma.
- John Girden (1861) married Saphronia Josephine (“Josie”) English in Texas.
- Mary J (1863) married Samuel E. Jefferson in Texas.
- Elizabeth Lee (1865)
The 1860 Census finds the little family farming in Todd County. Cinthelia and William are each nearing 30, and they have three boys running around the place.
During the 1850s William was a Deputy Sheriff of Todd County, serving under Sheriff William Hearn, who just so happens to have been his father-in-law. By 1858 he had succeeded Hearn as Sheriff.
Kentucky in the Civil War
As hostilities broke out in 1861 Kentucky was officially neutral. Both sides initially respected that neutrality, but stationed troops immediately outside Kentucky’s borders. Finally the Confederates moved to occupy Columbus, Kentucky, along the Mississippi. General Grant responded by crossing the Ohio River into Paducah, and Kentucky’s convenient fiction was over.
The governor of Kentucky was pro-Confederacy but the state legislature was pro-Union, and the population was similarly divided. A pro-Confederacy group convened in Russellville, just a few miles from Cinthelia and William’s home, to establish a shadow state government aligned with the south. This area near Todd and Logan Counties was home to many slaveholders, including the Shelton, Hearn and Simons families. Those counties shared a border with Tennessee, and shared its Southern-leaning sentiments.
Decamp to Illinois
The Simons appear to have relocated to Illinois during the war. There are no surviving records of their stay in Illinois, but the youngest three children, born between 1861 and 1865, were all born there. As far as I can tell, none of their extended family joined them. I don’t know why they moved, but I think it indicates that William did not serve in the war, because I don’t think they would have intentionally isolated Cinthelia and her children. I think under those circumstances, Cinthelia would have stayed near her extended family.
The fact that there were children born during the war does not preclude William’s participation. In fact, there was a William Simons in the U.S. 10th Kentucky Infantry, most likely not our William, whose colorful career included enough sick leave and away-without-leave to account for the children. The fact that William had children doesn’t preclude his participation, either -- William’s younger brother Robert Alexander Simons had two sons, but served in the U.S. Kentucky Capitol Guard and died in 1864.
Retreat to Kentucky
While we don’t know anything about William’s service in the war, we do know that he didn’t survive it by much. The couple’s youngest daughter Elizabeth Lee was born in about 1865 so he must have been alive around then, but by 1870 Cinthelia was a widow. The 1870 Census shows that Cinthelia had returned to Kentucky. She did not returned to her previous home in Todd County, but instead she joined her brother John Carson Hearn, himself a widower, in Ballard County, just across the river from Illinois.
Cinthelia had five children at home, aged 5 to 15; Alexander Frank was no longer with them. None of the children were marked as having attended school in the last year, and the oldest two boys, aged 12 and 15, were marked as being able to read but not able to write.
The 1880 Census showed Cinthelia now living on her own, with four children. The oldest son still at home was James Louis, now 22, whose occupation was listed as “farmer”. I think that means that the Simons had their own farm, because otherwise he would have been listed as “farm labor” or similar.
My ancestor William Hearn Simons was the child who had moved away between the 1870 and 1880 Census. In fact he had just got married in March 1880, and he and his bride were now boarders in the home of Cinthelia’s brother William Gustavus Hearn.
Gone to Texas
Shortly after 1880, Cinthelia and her whole family picked up and moved to Texas. We don’t know why. We know they were there by 1882, because my great-grandmother Bertha Simons was born in Texas in that year. They don't appear to have been drawn to Texas by inlaws, since only oldest son William Hearn Simons was married before they set out.
Whereabouts
We don’t really know what happened to Alexander Frank Simons after 1860. My mother believed he was somehow lost during the war. There was one A. F. Simons, born in 1851 in Kentucky, who showed up in the 1900 Census as a cook in Nacogdoches, but there’s no direct connection.
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| William Hearn Simons and Alice Dora Morris in about 1900 |
My ancestors William and Alice Morris Simons stayed in Texas only a few years. After the birth of their second daughter in 1884 they moved back to Ballard County. Possibly they were tired of the Wagon Trains, Rawhide, and the smell of Gunsmoke. But they were the exception; everyone else lived out their lives in Texas, Oklahoma or Arkansas.
James Louis Simons married Annie Lee Haggard in 1903 in Whitesboro, Texas, and later became a farmer in Oklahoma. He died in 1918. Annie and her two daughters stayed in Oklahoma, where Annie died in 1962.
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| From Richard Weiss on ancestry.com, de-skewed. |
John Girden Simons married Saphronia Josephine English in 1899 in Oklahoma. Josie, as she was known, was born in Arkansas, like Annie Haggard. John G. died some time before 1920, when the widow Josie and her three children were living with Josie’s parents in Oklahoma. She died in 1954.
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| From Richard Weiss on ancestry.com |
Mary J Simons married Samuel Jefferson in 1886 near Fort Worth. They had four children, but Mary died some time between 1893 and 1900, just a little over thirty. Sam lived on first with Cinthelia and then with his brother Jim, and then eventually alone. He took his own life in 1939.
The youngest child was Elizabeth Lee Simons. Shortly after the family arrived in Texas, she married William Thomas Grigsby. Like the Simons family, the Grigsby's had moved from Western Kentucky all together, a few years before the Simons did the same thing.
An 1892 Fort Worth directory has her living at 807 E. Third Street along with her son James, a teamster. In 1895 she’s living in the Glenwood area of Fort Worth with her sons James L and John G, both teamsters.
By the 1900 Census Cinthelia was living with her widowed son-in-law Sam Jefferson, outside of town in Montague County. She died there in 1910, and is buried in Nocona.
Epilogue
In 1937 the extended Simons family got together in Texas, somewhere near Dallas/Fort Worth. Seated in front are William Hearn Simons, the son who left, and Elizabeth Lee Simons Grigsby. Just off William's right shoulder is his wife Alice Morris Simons and two of her sisters. At the far left on the second row is Jewell Starnes, Elizabeth Lee Grigsby's granddaughter. In the back center is John Girden Simon's son Johnnie, the kid from the photo above. Somewhere in there are James Louis Simons' wife Annie Haggard Simons, next to her daughters Lois and Hazel.
Previously: Elizabeth Sarah Shelton and William Hearn
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