Sims Cemetery

Sims Cemetery. Choctaw County. , The Sims Cemetery is located just south of this marker. Buried there, is the infamous Robert B. "Bob" Sims (1831-1891). From the early 1870s to 1891, Bob and his band of followers carried out a virtual reign of terror in central and southern Choctaw County. In 1891, incidents of violence intensified, including the murder of the Rev. Richard Carroll, a Baptist minister in the Souwilpa community. In August 1891 at Bladon Springs, as U.S. Marshalls were transporting Bob Sims to Mobile to face charges of producing and selling untaxed whiskey, Sims escaped with the help of family members and other followers. Several were killed or injured in this incident. Later that year, Sims and other "Simsites" returned to the area near present day Gilbertown and on the night of December 23, 1891, ambushed members of the McMillan Family, destroying the McMillan house and story by fire and killing four, including two children. , On Christmas Day 1891, on a large tree limb that extended over the road just southwest of here, four "Simsites" were hanged by a citizen posse, which had overtaken law enforcement officials who were attempting to escort the "Simsites" to the county jail in Butler, Alabama. Will and Tyree Savage were hanged. Also buried here is Harry Hinton, an African-American "Simsite" captured later, who was hung from the same tree as Bob Sims and the Savages. After the entire sequence of events had subsided the tally of the dead from what became known as "The Sims War" was 18 deaths: nine by shooting and nine by hanging. Among the dead were 11 "Simsites" and 7 law abiding people, including those killed at Bladon Springs. , Listed in the Alabama Historic Cemetery Register on June 26, 2018.