Author: Simmons, William Hayne
Biography:
SIMMONS, William Hayne (1784-1870: ancestry.com)
He was born in Charleston SC, elder brother of James Wright Simmons (q.v.). The names of their parents have not been found. Although he graduated from the medical school at the University of Pennsylvania in 1806, he never practised as a physician. When Florida became a Territory in 1821, he moved to St. Augustine, East Florida, and began speculating in land. He was also employed as a government agent to advise on a third division of the territory (Middle Florida) and on the site for a capital (Talahassee). He published Notices of East Florida: with an Account of the Seminole Nation of Indians (Charleston 1822)--several times reprinted--and served as a representative for East Florida on the territorial council in 1823, but after that returned to Charleston. He never married. His only other volume of poetry is Alasco, an Indian Tale . . . and Other Poems (Philadelphia 1857). He died in Charleston and is buried in the Magnolia Cemetery there. (ancestry.com 22 Sept. 2020; Appleton; James M. Denham, Cracker Times and Pioneer Lives [2003] 163) HJ