Simms, Jeptha Root
author, was born Dec. 31, 1807, in Canterbury, Conn.
In 1829 he began the retail dry goods business in New York city; and three years later continued the business in Schoharie county, N. Y.
After 1842 he filled the office of toll collector, and for nine years was ticket agent. His spare hours were employed in collecting an assortment of fossils, which he sold for five thousand dollars to the state of New York for the Geological museum of Albany. He was a rapid writer and a voluminous contributor to current literature. He was the author of a History of Schoharie County; The American Spy, Nathan Hale; Trappers of New York; The Frontiersmen; and numerous lectures and poems. He died May 31, 1883, in Fort Plain, N. Y.