BIO: George Washington SIMMONS, Dauphin County, PA

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Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of Dauphin County, 
Containing Sketches of Representative Citizens, and Many of the 
Early Scotch-Irish and German Settlers.  Chambersburg, Pa.: 
J. M. Runk & Company, 1896, page 236.
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  SIMMONS, GEORGE WASHNGTON, son of Robert and Sarah (Ward) Simmons, 
was born February 17, 1814, in Lower Paxtang township, Dauphin county, 
Pa.  His father was a native of Paxtang, of English ancestry, and died 
about 1859, aged seventy-five years.  He married Sarah, daughter of 
John and Elizabeth (Whitley) Ward.  She died at Dauphin at the age of 
seventy-three.  The children of Robert Simmons and his wife Sarah Ward 
were, George Washington, John, Jane, who married Samuel Fertig, 
Matilda, who married a Mr. McCollough, Robert, and Mary, who married 
Revere Hetzel.  George W. passed his early years on his father's farm, 
came to Harrisburg in 1831, and learned chair-making with George W. 
Boyd.  After serving his apprenticeship, he began business for himself, 
which he carried on about ten years.  He was for three years in charge 
of a packet-boat on the Pennsylvania canal, and from 1849 to 1862, a 
baggage-master on the Pennsylvania railroad.  He was subsequently 
elected warden of the Dauphin county prison, a position he filled 
fourteen years, when he retired from active life.  Mr. Simmons married, 
in 1836, Elizabeth Bates, of Middle Paxtang, and their children were:  
John, who died at Philadelphia in 1881, William Henry, Major Oliver, 
Annie, Martha, who married Nelson Kilgore, and Frank.