Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 5.djvu/339

 VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

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rolled bills. Me was commissioner of ac- counts for Southampton county from 1892 to 1904, and town recorder of Courtland, the county seat, for four years. He was ap- pointed under the new school system, one of the members of the board of state school trustees and has been a warm friend of the public school system.

Air. Sebrell has been a member of the JMasonic order for fifty-seven years. He was worshipful master of Franklin Lodge, Xo. 151. Free and Accepted Alasons. for six years, and was one of the organizers and charter members of Courtland Lodge, Xo. 85, and served as master of that lodge for seven years. By virtue of being master, he was a member of the grand lodge of Vir- ginia, Free and Accepted Alasons, and in 1888 was elected district deputy grand master of the thirty-second Masonic district of V'irginia and has held that high office until the present date. He is also a past noble grand of Lodge Xo. 109, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, having been the first man to hold that olifice in that lodge. He yet holds association with his old comrades as a member of Urquhart Gillette Post, United Confederate Veterans of Franklin, Virginia.

He has been a member of the Methodist Episcopal church for sixty-seven years, is a present member of the official board and superintendent of the Sunday school. His record of service to his county, state and town has never been equalled in Southamp- ton county and perhaps in the stTte. His versatile talents and disinterested regard for all the duties of good citizenship have been constantly available for public service, and Southampton county, in school, church, fra- ternity and finance has profited by the long and unselfish devotion of James Edward Se- brell. one of the noblest of her sons.

Mr. Sebrell married, December 7, 1854, Ann I\Iaria Bell, born in Southampton county, Virginia, in 1835, daughter of Tames and Mary (Butts) Bell. Children: i! Wil- liam James, a lawyer, commonwealth at- torney at the time of his death which oc- curred in 191 1 ; he was a member of the Virginia house of delegates and was suc- ceeded in ofifice by his father; he married Xettie Kendred, daughter of the Hon. John J. Kendred. 2. Thomas Edwards, married Ella Prince. 3. Dr. Joseph Emmett, grad- uate of Richmond College of Medicine, now a practicing physician of Xorfolk, \'irginia ; he married Elizabeth Cobb. 4. Lorena

Florence, now principal of Courtland High School. 5. Mary Ula, married J. Emmett Moyley. 6. Robert Ashby, a commission merchant of Xorfolk, Virginia. 7. John Ney. a lawyer of Xorfolk and an ex-mem- ber of the V'irginia legislature ; he married Elizabeth Prince. 8. Charles Hall, a drug- gist of Emporia, Virginia ; married Mary Drewry Turnbull, daughter of Sherift' Rob- ert Turnbull. Many grandchildren have come to gladden the home of Mr. and Mrs. Sebrell, who in them renew their youth and live again the period when their own chil- dren made merry the fireside. The fiftieth anniversary of their wedding occurred De- cember 7, 1904, and their sixtieth on De- cember 7, 1914, both being hale and hearty.

Samuel Watts Zimmer, a prominent at- torney of Petersburg, was born October 24, 1884, at Petersburg, Virginia, a descendant of Louis Zimmer, who emigrated from Lausanne. Switzerland, in 1806, and his wife, Tobitha (Hebron) Zimmer, of Phil- adelphia. He located at Alexandria, Vir- ginia, where he entered the family of Mr. Cazenove who had previously come from Switzerland and located there. About 1810 he remo\ed to Petersburg, Virginia, where he died in 1866.

His son. Rev. William I. Zimmer, was Ijorn in Petersburg, prepared for the prac- tice of law, in which he engaged for a short time, but gave it up to enter the ministry of the Protestant Episcopal church. He was graduated from the Theological Seminary of Virginia, near Alexandria, in 1847, re- moved to Georgia, became the first rector of St. Phillip's Church in .\tlanta, now the Cathedral Church of that diocese, and died in Virginia, in September, i860. He mar- ried Julia Ellis Ximmo, of Richmond, Vir- ginia, who was descended from many pio- neer Virginia families. Among her more distinguished ancestors were Sir George Yeardley, Adam Thoroughgood, John Cus- tis, Francis Mason, Jacob Johnson and James Ximmo of "Shenstone Green," Prin- cess Anne county. The last named was a lawyer of much reputation and by his life and character gained the title of "the honest lawyer." He was the great-grandfather of Julia Ellis Nimmo.

William Louis Zimmer, son of Rev. Wil- liam I. and Julia E. (Ximmo) Zimmer, was born July 7, 1852. in Atlanta, and in early life was much given to out-door sports.