William Gilmore Simms Timeline
This timeline serves to orient one to the life of Simms and his family, key events of the era important to that life, and selected publications that issued during Simms's career. It is divided into slightly overlapping sections: Simms's antecedents, his youth, his maturity, his old age, and his later critical reception and treatment. As appropriate, additional points will be added.
| 1759 | Birth of John Singleton, Simms's maternal grandfather. |
| 1779 | Marriage of Jane Miller and John Singleton. |
| 1780 | Captain John Miller, Simms's maternal great grandfather, killed in action at the Battle of Hanging Rock. |
| 1783 | Possible year of migration of William and Elisabeth Sims from Larne in Ulster eventually to Lancaster District, SC. |
| 1785 | Birth of Harriet Ann Augusta Singleton, Simms's mother. |
| 1793 | Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin |
| 1803 | End of Haitian Revolution |
| 1803 | Louisiana Purchase |
| 1804 | Lewis and Clark expedition to explore western America begins |
| 1804 | Marriage of William Gilmore Simms with Harriet Singleton. |
| 4/17/1806 | William Gilmore Simms born in Charleston, South Carolina to William Gilmore Simms and Harriet Ann Augusta Singleton Simms |
| 1807 | End of legal importation of slaves into America |
| 1808 | Due to the death of his mother, Simms left in the custody of his materal grandmother |
| 1808 | Simms's father leaves Charleston distraught, looking for a new beginning in the Southwest |
| 1812 | Simms begins attending Charleston public school |
| 1814 | Roderick, The Last of the Goths, epic poem by Robert Southey |
| 1814 | Waverley, the first of Sir Walter Scott's Border Romances |
| 1815 | Napolean's "Hundred Day War" begins |
| 1815 | End of War of 1812 |
| 1816 | After finishing school, Simms declines his father's invitation to join him out west, preferring to stay in Charleston with his grandmother |
| 1818 | Simms apprenticing under an apothecary |
| 1819 | Ivanhoe, the first of Sir Walter Scott's Medieval Romances |
| 1821 | Mexico and neighboring countries proclaim independence from Spain |
| 1823 | The Pioneers, the first of James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales |
| 1824 | Simms travels to the West to visit his father |
| 1825 | Simms apprenticing in the law office of Charles Rivers Carroll |
| 1825 | Simms is an editor and avid publisher in the Charleston literary weekly entitled Album |
| 1825 | Monody, on the Death of Gen. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Simms's first published title, an epic |
| 1826 | Joseph-Nicephore Niepce takes the world's first photograph |
| 10/19/1826 | Simms marries Anna Malcolm Giles |
| 1827 | Simms gains admittance to the Bar |
| 1827 | Simms appointed magistrate of Charleston |
| 1827 | Simms's first publication of two volumes of poetry (Lyrical and Other Poems and Early Lays) |
| 11/11/1827 | Anna Augusta Singleton Simms born |
| 1830 | July Revolution in France |
| 1832 | Simms's wife, Anna Malcolm Giles Simms, dies |
| 1832 | Simms visits New York, where he meets his future literary agent and lifelong friend James Lawson |
| 1832 | Atalantis, Simms's first New York publication |
| 1834 | Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia, Simms's first full-length novel and first Border Romance |
| 1835 | The Yemassee: A Tale of Carolina, Simms's first Colonial Romance |
| 1835 | The Partisan: A Tale of the Revolution, Simms's first Revolutionary Romance |
| 1835 | Texas Revolution begins |
| 1836 | Simms moves to the plantation known as Woodlands, owned by father-in-law |
| 11/15/1836 | Simms gets remarried, to Chevillette Eliza Roach |
| 1837 | Victoria becomes Queen of Great Britain |
| 11/15/1837 | Simms's first child with Chevillette born, a daughter named Virginia Singleton Simms |
| 1839 | Southern Passages and Pictures |
| 1839 | The Damsel of Darien, Simms's first Spanish Romance |
| 1841 | Confession; or, The Blind Heart: A Domestic Story |
| 1841 | US President Harrison dies; John Tyler takes office, becoming first Vice President to succeed to presidency |
| 1842 | Beauchampe, or, The Kentucky Tragedy: A Tale of Passion (later republished in two volumes: Charlemont and Beauchampe) |
| 1842 | Simms edits the Charleston literary magazine Magnolia for a year |
| 1842 | The History of South Carolina |
| 1844 | Simms elected to the South Carolina legislature until 1846 |
| 1844 | Samuel F. B. Morse patents telegraph |
| 1844 | The Life of Francis Marion |
| 1845 | The Wigwam and the Cabin |
| 1845 | Simms edits the Southern and Western (also known as "Simms's Magazine") |
| 1845 | The annexation of Texas is adopted by Congress |
| 1845 | Edgar Allen Poe publishes The Raven and Other Poems |
| 1845 | Grouped Thoughts and Scattered Fancies |
| 1846 | The Life of Captain John Smith |
| 1846 | Views and Reviews in American Literature History and Fiction (First Series) |
| 1846 | US declares war on Mexico |
| 1847 | The Life of Chevalier Bayard |
| 1847 | Views and Reviews in American Literature History and Fiction (Second Series) |
| 1849 | Simms edits the Southern Quarterly Review until 1855 |
| 1849 | California Gold Rush begins |
| 1850 | The Lily and the Totem, or, The Huguenots in Florida |
| 1850 | Henry Clay begins debate on slavery, with warning to the South of secession |
| 1850 | The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne's Historical Romance set in Puritan Boston during the time of the English Civil War |
| 1851 | Herman Melville publishes Moby Dick |
| 1852 | The Sword and the Distaff, or, "Fair, Fat and Sorty": A Story of the South at the Close of the Revolution (later retitled Woodcraft) |
| 1852 | Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin |
| 1853 | Vasconselos: A Romance of the New World |
| 1853 | Poems, Descriptive, Dramatic, Legendary, and Contemplative |
| 1853 | Republican party is formed in Michigan |
| 1853 | Tennyson publishes Charge of the Light Brigade |
| 1853 | Henry David Thoreau publishes Walden |
| 1855 | Walt Whitman publishes Leaves of Grass |
| 1856 | Simms gives speeches in the North about pro-South Carolina and pro-southern views |
| 1857 | Supreme Court rules that a slave is not a citizen |
| 9/22/1858 | Simms loses two sons to yellow fever |
| 1859 | The Cassique of Kiawah: A Colonial Romance, Simms's last Colonial Romance |
| 1859 | Charles Darwin publishes Origin of Species |
| 1859 | J.S. Mill publishes On Liberty |
| 1860 | Simms supports the secessionist movement |
| 1860 | Simms's Poems Areytos or Songs and Ballads of the South with Other Poems, Simms's last collection of his poetry |
| 12/20/1860 | South Carolian secedes from the Union |
| 4/12/1861 | US Civil War begins |
| 1862 | Woodlands Plantation burns to the ground, but is rebuilt with help from friends and family |
| 1862 | Battle of Shiloh - Tennessee |
| 1862 | Second Battle of Bull Run - Virginia |
| 1862 | Battle of Antietam - Maryland |
| 10/20/1862 | Charles Caroll Simms, Simms's last child, born |
| 1863 | Simms's wife, Chevillette, dies |
| 1863 | Battle of Gettysburg - Pennsylvania |
| 6/12/1864 | William Gilmore Simms, Jr., Simms's eldest son, is wounded in battle |
| 11/13/1864 | Simms's most intimate friend, James Henry Hammond, dies |
| 11/15/1864 | General Sherman begins his "March to the Sea" |
| 1865 | Woodlands Plantation burns a second time |
| 1865 | Simms witnesses the burning of Columbia, SC |
| 1865 | Civil War ends |
| 1866 | Simms attempts to reestablish relations with Northern publishers; is unsuccessful |
| 1866 | Simms edits War Poetry of the South |
| 1867 | "Joscelyn: A Tale of the Revoluton" (in the magazine Old Guard), Simms's last Revolutionary Romance |
| 1868 | Fourteenth Amendment is ratified, granting African Americans civil rights |
| 1869 | "The Cub of the Panther: A Mountain Legend" (in the magazine Old Guard), Simms's last Border Romance |
| 5/3/1870 | Simms's delivers speech "The Sense of the Beautiful" |
| 6/11/1870 | After a long struggle with cancer, Simms dies in Charleston, in the home of his first daughter |
| 1879 | Monument bust of Simms erected in White Point Gardens in Charleston. |
| 1885 | Paul Hamilton Hayne's personal reminiscences of Simms in "Ante-Bellum Charleston" in Southern Bivouac (v. 1). |
| 1887 | Charles Richardson's American Literature: 1607-1885 observes that Simms is "more respected than read." |
| 1888 | Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography attributes a biography of Simms in the American Men of Letters series to George W. Cable. It did not appear until four years later and then under different authorship. |
| 1892 | William P. Trent's biography, William Gilmore Simms, published in the American Men of Letters series |
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