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Edward Peter Simons


Gender:
Male
Born:
September 15, 1794
Died:
October 7, 1823
Home Town:
Georgetown District, SC
Later Residences:
Charleston, SC
Marriage(s):
Catharine Patternson Simons (unknown)
Biographical Notes:
Edward Peter Simons was the son of Maurice and Elizabeth (Simons) Simons. His parents had both died by the time he was eight years old and he had no close relatives nearby to raise him. Simons was very precocious and at the age of twelve wrote and delivered a Fourth of July oration and was always at the head of his class.

In 1810, he was sent to New Haven, CT and entered Yale as a freshman. He excelled in all subjects but debates were his favorite and he was a bold speaker. Simons was one of a few southern students at Yale and a near riot broke out in the chapel during one of his speeches, but he would not stop until his speech was finished.

He had great success in his legal practice and when his preceptor Colonel Simons died in 1819, he inherited most of his business. His ...
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Additional Notes:
He is listed as "E Peter Simmons" in William Samuel Johnson's handwritten list at Connecticut Historical Society.

Education
Years at LLS:
1815,1817
Other Education:
Edward Peter Simons studied with private tutors for most of his early childhood and boarded with an elderly lady while attending Charleston College under Rev. Dr. Buist. However, he was too young for that school and left to be prepared for college in the school of John Waldo in Georgetown, SC. He later graduated from Yale College in 1814. He then returned to Charleston, SC to study with a relative, Colonel Keating Lewis Simons, for a year from 1814 to 1815.

Profession / Service
Profession:
Lawyer; Political Office
Admitted To Bar:
Charleston, SC in 1817
State Posts:
State Representative (SC) 1820-1823
Local Posts:
Warden (Charleston, SC) 1821-1823

Related Objects and Documents
Other:
help The Citation of Attendance provides primary source documentation of the student’s attendance at the Litchfield Female Academy and/or the Litchfield Law School. If a citation is absent, the student is thought to have attended but currently lacks primary source confirmation.

Records for the schools were sporadic, especially in the formative years of both institutions. If instructors kept comprehensive records for the Litchfield Female Academy or the Litchfield Law School, they do not survive. Researchers and staff have identified students through letters, diaries, family histories and genealogies, and town histories as well as catalogues of students printed in various years. Art and needlework have provided further identification of Female Academy Students, and Litchfield County Bar records document a number of Law School students. The history of both schools and the identification of the students who attended them owe credit to the early 20th century research and documentation efforts of Emily Noyes Vanderpoel and Samuel Fisher, and the late 20th century research and documentation efforts of Lynne Templeton Brickley and the Litchfield Historical Society staff.
CITATION OF ATTENDANCE:
Handwritten list by William Samuel Johnson, "Catalogue of the Students at Law in the school at Litchfield Conn. at & after Aug. 15th 1817..", Connecticut Historical Society, Johnson Family Papers, 1722-1863, Box - Johnson Papers.

Catalogue of the Litchfield Law School (Hartford, CT: Press of Case, Tiffany and Company, 1849), 14.
Secondary Sources:
O'Neall, John Belton. Biographical Sketches of the Bench and Bar of South Carolina, Vol. 2. Charleston, SC: S.G. Courtenay and Co., Publishers, 1859.

Dexter, Franklin Bowditch. Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College with Annals of College History, Vol. 6. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1912.

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