James B. Simmons, D.D. Corresponding Secretary of the American Baptist Home Mission Society from 1867 to 1874, was born in the township of Northeast, Dutchess County, New York

Dutchess County, New York

Dutchess County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York, in the state's Mid-Hudson Region of the Hudson Valley. The 2010 census lists the population as 297,488...

. His father was a thrifty farmer of German extraction; his mother was of Scotch descent. She was thrown from a carriage and killed when James was but five months old.

He graduated from Brown University

Brown University

Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...

 in 1851 and Newton Theological Seminary in 1854. He served as a Baptist

Baptist

Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...

 minister in Providence, RI, Indianapolis, IN, and Philadelphia, PA. He was recruited from Philadelphia by the ABHMS, and was assigned in 1869 to development of missions among the colored peoples of the South and West and Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

. He was instrumental in this role in the early development of Shaw University

Shaw University

Shaw University, founded as Raleigh Institute, is a private liberal arts institution and historically black university in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. Founded in 1865, it is the oldest HBCU in the Southern United States....

, Benedict College

Benedict College

Benedict College is a historically black, liberal arts college located in Columbia, South Carolina. Founded in 1870 by northern Baptists, it was originally a teachers' college. It has since expanded into a four-year college.-History:...

, Virginia Union University

Virginia Union University

Virginia Union University is a historically black university located in Richmond, Virginia, United States. It took its present name in 1899 upon the merger of two older schools, Richmond Theological Institute and Wayland Seminary, each founded after the end of American Civil War by the American...

, Morehouse College

Morehouse College

Morehouse College is a private, all-male, liberal arts, historically black college located in Atlanta, Georgia. Along with Hampden-Sydney College and Wabash College, Morehouse is one of three remaining traditional men's colleges in the United States....

, and the defunct Roger Williams University

Roger Williams University

Roger Williams University, commonly abbreviated as RWU, is a private, coeducational American liberal arts university located on in Bristol, Rhode Island, above Mt. Hope Bay. Founded in 1956, it was named for theologian and Rhode Island cofounder Roger Williams...

 of Nashville and Leland University of New Orleans.

He was an early benefactor of Hardin-Simmons University

Hardin-Simmons University

Hardin–Simmons University is a private Baptist university located in Abilene, Texas, United States.-History:Hardin–Simmons University was founded as Abilene Baptist College in 1891 by the Sweetwater Baptist Association and a group of cattlemen and pastors who sought to bring Christian higher...

.