Biography of John Thomas SIMMS, Fayette County, West Virginia This file was submitted by Cheryl McCollum, E-mail address: This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. This file is part of the WVGenWeb Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume II pg. 54 JOHN THOMAS SIMMS, counsel and executive assistant to the state tax commissioner of West Virginia, is the legal representative of the state in practically all matters involving the Tax Department. It is a large responsibility capably performed, and the duties have occupied the time and abilities of Judge Simms for over six years. He is a former judge of the Criminal Court of Fayette County and has been a West Virginia lawyer nearly twenty years. Judge Simms was born at Ansted, Fayette County, West Virginia, May 10, 1875, son of Robert Clark and Sarah Catharine (Jones) Simms. His paternal ancestors were Scotch and settled in old Virginia prior to the Revolutionary war. One ancestor, Edward Simms, was a soldier in the Revolution. The mother of Sarah Catharine Jones was a Miss Daniel, a cousin of the late John W. Daniel of Virginia. John Thomas Simms grew up on a farm, attended the local public schools, and through and in the intervals of his vocation as a teacher acquired his higher education involving association as a student with the Summersville Normal School, the Fayetteville Academy and the University of West Virginia. He was connected with the Fayetteville Academy both as teacher and pupil, Judge Simms graduated in law from the State university in June, 1903, and at once began practice at Fayetteville. His inquiring mind, his great energy and the integrity which he put at the disposal of his clients won quickly for him a high reputation as a lawyer. In the fall of 1910 he was elected judge of the Criminal Court of Fayette County, and served on the bench four years. It should be a matter of justifiable pride to Judge Simms as a lawyer that throughout the period of his incumbency as judge of the Criminal Court he was never reversed by the Supreme Court. There is no chronicle in West Virginia of any other judge having such a record who sat for a full term. At the close of his term on the bench in January, 1915, Judge Simms came to Charleston as special counsel for the State Tax Commission, the full title of his office being counsel and executive assistant to the state tax commissioner. In this capacity he has rendered legal services of an importance that only those in close touch with the Tax Department appreciate. Representing the Tax Department he has practiced in all the courts of the state and in the Supreme Court of the United States. The problems he has to meet and solve are frequently exacting and require a high degree of sagacity and legal acumen and in many cases he presents the cause of the state against some of the ablest and keenest corporation lawyers. In general, he looks after the interpretation of the tax statutes of the state, also the appeals of public works on matters of taxation, and many of these problems involve the great industrial corporations and highly capitalized public utility concerns. Until the national prohibition law of West Virginia, Judge Simms had as part of his duties the vigorous prosecution of violations of that law. In the course of these duties he formulated and brought into practice the first legal or statutory definition of the moonshine still, a definition that became a part of the state's prohibition statutes. Judge Simms is a member of the State and American Bar Associations. is a republican, and is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, and a member of the Knights of Pythias. He and his family are Presbyterians. December 28, 1903, he married Miss Eugenia A. Alderson, daughter of Hon. John D. Alderson, of Nicholas County, who at one time represented his district in Congress. The family of Judge Simms comprises four sons, John Alderson, Phillip, Frederick Eugene and Edward Broadus. The oldest John Alderson Simms, has the record of being the youngest graduate in the history of the Charleston High School. He finished his eighth grade work at the age of ten and a half years and graduated from high school just four years later. He is now a student in the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington, Virginia.