The venerable citizen whose name is at the head of this sketch was the eldest of a large family, and was born at Dighton, Bristol county, Massachusetts, on the 12th of April, 1801. In the same year his parents removed to Bristol, Ontario county. New York, where Joshua remained with his father, attending the common school and engaged in the duties of the farm, until he reached the age of twenty-one years, when he obtained employment on his own account, and worked at thirteen dollars per month until he had realized the sum of two hundred and twenty-five dollars, and then, at the age of twenty-three years, came to Michigan and selected and entered one hundred and sixty acres of land in section 6 in the township of Livonia, Wayne county. Having accomplished this he returned to Ontario county, and labored for two years longer, then, on the 13th of January, 1826, married Hannah Macomber, of Bristol, and in the September following again left for Michigan, taking with him his young wife, to commence life in the wilderness. They came by the old steamboat "Superior" on Lake Erie to Detroit, and were three days on the way from thence to their place of destination, nine-teen miles, though they were compelled to travel fully thirty miles before arriving there. The teamsters who brought him out were Leland Green and Wardwell Green, whom he was unable to pay in full for the service, lacking five dollars of the requisite amount. The household goods were unloaded upon the ground, and the owner remained with them through the long hours of the drizzling, rainy night. His wife had been left at a Mr. Thayer's, a mile distant, with the arrangement that in the morning he would fire a gun to notify her that all was safe and right. Anxiously she listened and joyously she heard it, and before another night had closed in she was in occupation of their own cabin, which, by the kind assistance of pioneer neighbors, had been built during the day, and securely roofed in with basswood troughs.

Mr. Simmons was a natural mechanic, and had brought a few tools with him to the west, and these served him a good turn in the support of his family, for a day of mechanical labor would then command two days of unskilled labor on farm or in forest, and Mr. Simmons turned all his skill to the best account. He built the first frame barn in the town of Plymouth, this being on the farm of Erastus Starkweather, erected in 1827, and in his own township of Livonia he also built the first barn of that description upon his own farm in 1829. He hewed the timber for the first mill built in Plymouth, and also for the first one in the township of Farmington, this being the mill built by Edward Steel on the stream above Farmington village.

The first Michigan election Mr. Simmons participated in was held somewhere in the town of Dearborn, and to reach the polls he, in company with a neighbor, started before daylight on foot, following a line of "blazed" trees many miles through the forest. His vote for supervisor was cast for Rev. Marcus Swift, who was competing for the honors of that office with Mr. Teneyck, of hotel notoriety. Mr. Swift was elected by a majority of two.

By the most persistent and unremitting toil, Mr. Simmons cleared his land and gave it a thorough cultivation, and in due time the old log cabin was demolished, and in its place, in the year 1841, he erected a new residence, which at the time was universally acknowledged to be the finest farm house in the county, and of which Mr. S. P. Lyon, of Farmington, was architect and builder. On another page we present a representation of this residence, which is still among the finest in that part of the county of Wayne.

The names of the children who have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Simmons are as follows: Richmond C, L. Wellington, William T., J. Morell, Mary E., Jennie E., and Helen M. All of these excepting William and Jennie are living, and all married and settled on farms near the old horne. In politics Mr. Simmons has always been a Democrat of the Jackson ian school, and in religious faith a Universalist. From his farm and his other enterprises he has amassed an ample fortune, and about eight years since he retired from all active business, resolved to spend the remnant of his days in ease and quiet with the partner of his youth, and with the children who delight to do him honor.