JAMES E. SIMES, of Covington, Miami County, Ohio, is clerk in charge in the railway mail service, running from Richmond, Indiana, to St. Louis, Missouri, and has been in the service since April 27 1889. He was born at Sugar Grove, in Newton Township,, Miami County, Ohio, October 1, 1868, and is a son of Thomas J. and Mary E. (Berlin) Simes.

Thomas J. Simes was born in Thompsontown, Pennsylvania, July 24, 1842, and died in Covington, March 18, 1906. He was a miller by trade and at one time conducted what is now known as the Kindell Mills. He subsequently operated a grain elevator in Covington, and still later entered the fruit tree business at which he continued until his death. He was in 1867 married to Mary E. Berlin, who survives him, and they became parents of two sons and two daughters. In 1883 he united with the Christian Church, of which he was thereafter a liberal supporter. From early manhood he was affiliated with the Masonic Lodge. During the Civil War he served as a member of the Forty-fourth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and later was a member of the G.A.R. he was a man prominent in business, church and fraternal circles, and was well known over the county. For some years he served as a member of the Covington School Board.

James E. Simes was reared at Sugar Grove and attended the public schools at Covington, after which he completed a course in the Miami Commercial College at Dayton, Ohio. He was not yet of age when he entered the railway postal service during the administration of President Harrison and he has continued without interruption since. Mr. Simes was united in marriage with Miss Elizabeth Kriegbaum, a daughter of Conrad and Susan (Smith) Kriegbaum, and they have a daughter, Miriam Erla. Fraternally, he is past master of Covington, Lodge, F.& A.M.