Simeon P. Runyan
Simeon P. Runyan, a prosperous farmer of the Fourth District of James
County, was born in Bledsoe County, June 26, 1821. He is the sixth of nine
children of John and Nancy (Mullendore) Runyan. The parents were natives of
Sevier County, Tenn., of Welsh and German descent. The father was born about
1778, and died in Hamilton (now James) County in 1854. He was a successful
farmer and stanch Democrat. The mother was born in 1794, and died at the home of
our subject, August 27, 1875, in her eighty-first year. They were married in
their native county, and spent their lives in Sevier, Rhea and Bledsoe Counties,
East Tenn. Our subject received a liberal education. He taught school several
years, in connection with his farming interests. At twenty-two or twenty-three
years of age he purchased and settled on a farm in Hamilton (now James) County.
He lived there fourteen years. In 1858 he moved to his present place of
residence. He served one year in the war with the Cherokee Indians, in Col.
Powell's Regiment. He was quartermaster sergeant of the Fifth Tennessee
Regiment, Mounted Infantry, Federal Army, for one year, during the late civil
war. He is a Republican and a worthy citizen. By his own efforts and judicious
management has become the possessor of upward of 1,000 acres of valuable land.
July 22, 1844, he married Miss Nancy C. Birgar, who was born in Roane County
about 1825, and died September 4, 1860. She was a member of the Methodist
Episcopal Church (North), and mother of five sons and three daughters, of whom
two sons and one daughter are dead. One son, recruited in the Federal Army, was
in battle before he was mustered into service, and no particular account of him
was given in the battle of
“Goodspeed’s History
of East Tennessee,”