Jeremiah "Jerry" Simpson.

Encyclopedia of Daviess and Martin Counties of Indiana.

Published 1897.

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READERS whose impressions of the Medicine Lodge statesman have been derived from the ridicule of his political opponents, who dubbed him "Sockless Simpson" on account of a remark made in one of his campaign speeches, will be surprised to know that he is a rather good looking, well-dressed man, with scarcely a suggestion of rural simplicity in his appearance or manner. Congressman Simpson, of Kansas, was born in the province of New Brunswick March 31, 1842, but his parents removed to Oneida County, N. Y., when he was six years of age.

At the age of fourteen he began life as a sailor, which pursuit he followed for twenty-three years on the Great Lakes. During the early part of the Civil War he served for a time in Company A, Twelfth Illinois Infantry, but failing health compelled him to leave the service. In 1878 he drifted to Kansas, and is now living six miles from Medicine Lodge, Barber County, where he is engaged in farming and stock raising.

Mr. Simpson was a Republican originally, casting his first vote for the second election of Abraham Lincoln, but during the past twelve years has voted and affiliated with the Greenback and Union Labor parties. He twice ran for the Kansas Legislature on the Independent ticket in Barber County, but was defeated both times by a small plurality.

He was nominated for the Fifty-second Congress by the People's party and elected by the aid of the Democrats, who indorsed his nomination, and was re-elected to the Fifty-third Congress as a Farmers' Alliance candidate. Mr. Simpson is an earnest advocate of reforms for the benefit of the farmer and work- ing classes, and is a member of the committees on Agriculture and Territories.

Author. Mr. Simpson married Jane Cape, on October 12, 1870, at Buffalo, New York,; they had two children who's names are unknown to this author.  He was taken by his wife to St. Francis Hospital in Wichita, Kansas, for "Aneurism of the Hart".  He died on the morning of October 23, 1905.  His burial was at; Maple Grove Cemetery, Wichita, Sedgwick County, Kansas.