Michael Simmons

Who was Michael Simmons?

Michael Simmons or Michael Troutman Simmons was a 19th-century American pioneer and one of the first white men to settle in the Puget Sound.

Simmons was one of 10 children, born in Kentucky in 1814. As a boy, he moved with his mother to Pike County, Illinois. When Michael was 21 years old, he moved to Iowa and married a 15-year-old girl named Elizabeth Kindred. Five years later, the couple moved to Missouri and Michael built a gristmill. At the age of 30, he decided to abandon the Mid-West and came to the Puget Sound on a wagon train with a group of settlers in late 1845. He assumed leadership of the new settlers, who gave him the title of "Colonel". After taking advice from the traders of the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Nisqually, the new American settlers founded New Market. Despite its help, three years later Simmons led a campaign of complaints against the "monarchist" Hudson's Bay Company.

At New Market, Simmons exploited the power of Tumwater Falls to construct mills, but in 1850 sold his interests at New Market and moved to Olympia. Simmons invested in shipping and, despite being illiterate, became Olympia's postmaster.