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Cage 213
John A. Simms
Papers, 1858-1881
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| Washington State University Libraries Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections Pullman, WA 99164-5610 USA (509) 335-6691 Inquiries |
Cage 213
John A. Simms
Papers, 1858-1881
The John A. Simms Papers were acquired by Professor Herman J. Deutsch for the Washington State University Library in the summer of 1935 from Dr. S. P. McPherson of Chewelah, Washington. McPherson's home in Chewelah had formerly been the Indian Agency building and office as well as the last known residence of Simms and the papers were found in the attic. Under Dr. Deutsch's direction, the papers were designated the Simms Papers and processed during the winter of 1935-1936. They were reprocessed in July, 1973 by Robert A. Catale. An additional and smaller selection of Simms' papers were received among the Colville Indian Agency records donated by Albert I. Kulzer that same summer (see Cage 2053).
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
John A. Simms, born ca. 1827, traveled to California in 1850 in the wake of the Gold Rush from his home in Leonardtown, Maryland. Within a year, however, he moved on to Oregon where he lived during most of that decade. In 1858 he moved from The Dalles to Walla Walla in the Territory of Washington. There in partnership with A. H. Reynolds and Captain F. T. Dent (brother of Mrs. U. S. Grant) Simms in 1859 built and operated one of the first flour mills in the region. That same year he was appointed by the Territorial Legislature to be an interim justice of the peace until elections could be held. During the Civil War years it appears Simms made his living by providing flour to settlers and especially to miners on their way into the gold fields at Oro Fino.
Simms was a member of the nine-man Territorial Council (upper house) where he represented Clark, Skamania, Klikitat, Walla Walla, and Spokane counties. He held this position from 1861 until 1862 or 1863. Evidence from Owen's Journals and Letters tells us that Simms raised cattle and was regarded as a quiet, intelligent, and scrupulously honest man. During this time he had married Lucy McFadden, daughter of O.B. McFadden who had come from Pennsylvania to serve as an appointed judge in both the Oregon and Washington Territories.
Simms left for the east in 1868 in order to secure a federal appointment as Indian Agent in Washington Territory. By the spring of 1869 he was successful in gaining this commission and returned to eastern Washington to take up his duties in the Spokane-Colville region.
A disagreement over policy, in September, 1872, led to the resignation of W. P. Winans and the appointment of Simms as Winans' replacement. Simms' first assignment, the one Winans refused to carry out, was to convince the Spokane tribes that it was in their best interest to relocate to the newly formed Colville Reservation in the northern part of the territory and thus give up the improvements they had made to the land in the Spokane region. It was at this time that Simms assumed the position of principal Indian Agent at the Colville Agency. Evidence indicates that he held this position until 1880 or 1881. John A. Simms died in Spokane September 1, 1890.
Some additional information concerning Simms may be found in Frank T. Gilbert's Historic Sketches of Walla Walla, Whitman, Columbia, and Garfield Counties, Washington Territory, and Umatilla County, Oregon, (1882), and The Journals and Letters of Major John Owen, Pioneer of the Northwest, 1850-1871, edited by Seymour Dunbar (1927).
DESCRIPTION OF THE PAPERS
The papers align themselves with correspondence on one side and agency reports, bills and vouchers, financial statements, and abstracts on the other. The correspondence includes materials relative to Simms' work as Indian Agent and merchant and contains personal letters between himself and his wife, relatives back in Maryland, and friends. The agency correspondence includes reports on conditions at the Colville Indian Agency and School. The School, under the direction of Catholic sisters, came to be a center of controversy between Protestant and Catholic Indian factions. Simms, it should be noted, was a Catholic.
The financial records, reports, and abstracts present a picture of the economic interest the Federal Government was taking in the welfare of the Indian. Records of the mundane (office supplies for the Colville Agency) and the major (farming problems, relocation, and illness) are reflected in over 500 items.
Additional source material related to this collection is available in Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections in the Washington State University Library: The W. P. Winans Papers, (Cage 147) the John MacAdam Webster Papers (Cage 145), and the Colville Agency Papers (VF/871/228).
ARRANGEMENT OF THE PAPERS
The Simms Papers are arranged chronologically within folders in three series: Professional and personal correspondence; Financial records, statements, abstracts, and reports pertaining to the Colville Agency; and mercantile records.
CONTAINER LIST