James S. Simmons

Who was James S. Simmons?

James Samuel Simmons was a U.S. Representative from New York and nephew of fellow congressman Milton George Urner.

Born near Liberty, Maryland, Simmons attended the public schools and the local academy at Liberty. He graduated from Frederick College. He moved to Roanoke, Virginia, in 1880 and engaged in the real estate business. He moved to Niagara Falls, New York, in 1894 and continued in the real estate business. He served as chairman of the Republican city committee in 1907 and 1908.

Simmons was elected as a Republican to the Sixty-first and Sixty-second United States Congresses. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1912 to the Sixty-third Congress. He served as delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1912. He resumed the real estate business in Niagara Falls, New York, and also, in 1927, in St. Petersburg, Florida, where he died November 28, 1935. He was interred in Riverdale Cemetery in Lewiston, New York.