JAMES ALVIN SHIMP

SHIMP, SHUTTS, JONES, WHITCOMB

Posted By: Nancee Seifert (email)
Date: 3/31/2008 at 14:56:15

James Alvin Shim, born 24 October 1850 in Monroe County, Ohio, the son
of William D. and Rebecca Ann (Shutts) Shimp.

In 1860 his parents moved to Elizabethtown, later called Moundsville,
Marshall County, West Virginia. Here he acquired his education in the
schools of this time in history and spent his boyhood exploring the
banks of the Ohio River and the countryside for miles around, when not
helping in his parents' truck patch, or garden.

In 1869, his parents moved again, this time to Lucas County, Iowa, where
they settle on a farm four miles west of Chariton. He was nineteen
years of age at this time and worked on the farm and at times for the
neighbors as a farm hand

In 1872 he went with a group delivering a heard of horses to California,
under the leadership of Mart Levering. When they reached California he
secured a job as a farm hand on a ranch, out aways from Stockton, on the
Sacramento River in the Tulie Swamp land. This is a cattle raising, and
wheat growing region and after two years there, he returned to Iowa by
railroad.

He then secured employment as a farmhand, until he was married to
Elizabeth Sarah Jones, daughter of John Jones of Marion County, on the
17th day of March,1875.

In 1880 at the age of thirty, we find Sarah and James living by
themselves in Whitebreast Townshp, on a farm and not far away we find
James' brother, John and wife Annis, also on a farm with three
children. Here James was a renter, and in a few years he moved to
another farm. Then in 1900, he purchased a farm in Cedar Township,
moving there the same year. He lived there until 1916 when he retired
from the farm and moved to Chariton, living there until his death on 8th
September 1927.

He was a farmer all his life, staying in the boundaries of Lucas County.
He was not a church going person, as it was several miles to the nearest
church, and the roads were not the best, but he encouraged his children
to go, and saw to it that they had transportation. He was very quiet
and kind, never raising his voice to direct or to stop any action of his
children, thinking it best to spare the rod, hoping reason would serve
better.

Cedar Township, Lucas County is a rolling timberland where it required
constant work to overcome the brush. The hilly terrain caused ditches
where the soil was worked and a scarcity of surface water were problems
of the farmer in his section. One wonders how they made a living.

To James and Sarah were born seven children; Fred Ernest 1881, Nellia A.
1884, Lewis Lee 1882, Harry L. 1885, Clair Henry 1887, Mary Bell 1888, a
and Tessie May 1890.

Elizabeth Sarah (Jones) Shimp died 16 January 1895 and in this same
year James Ship married a second time to Louise (Whitcomb) Lewis, born
24, October 1869, the daughter of Lyman Whitcomb of Cedar Township.
They were married on the 21st December 1865 with Mr. and Mrs. A.H.
Collins as witnesses. To this union were born four children Edna
Elizabeth 1896, Charles James 1898, George Shutts 1901, and Water who
died in infancy in 1903. Louise, the mother, died on 23 July 1903.
James Alvin Shimp was buried in the Chariton City Cemetery, by the side
of his two wives and several of his children.

from Biographical ketches of the Shimpf Family by Charles James Shimp,
1965, p. 70-71

Copied by Roberta Tuller
robertanne@socal.rr.com