Keziah Grizzell Sims

Royster is a southern farmer family of English descent.

In Limestone County,ALA. there was a settlement called "Sim's Settlement", the settlers that were liveing there were on Indain Territory. So in 1809 some 100 settlers were removed . Included in the Intruders were -JAMES, WM. ELIZA and the WIDOW KEZIAH SIMS. this from " NATIONAL ARCHIVES record group # 75, INDAIN AGENCY IN TENN. Many that were removed became residents of Morgan Co. Al.

According to Almon Sims in his book on the family, there was Pariss Sims, and there was Parish Sims. Pariss, supposedly, is an ancestor, a soldier in the revolutionary war, and husband of Keziah Royster, who settled around Lynn Creek TN, before losing his land there (hence the scattering of his children). No grave marker was known for him, and death dates for Pariss and wife Keziah were both estimated to be c. 1832-33. How Almon Sims came to know the name of Parriss' wife is not said.

       On the other hand, there was Parish Sims, son of James (Bartlett) Sims of Virginia and Elizabeth Parish. This one was married to Grizel, sometimes called Kessiah or Keziah (it was Almon Sims' opinion that she was Grizel Kessiah, which he said was a common family name in VA). While Pariss was settling around Lynn Creek in 1807 and then moving on, Parish settled at Elk Creek in 1807, then died, and his widow, mother Elizabeth, brothers James and William are the people signing the Elk River Petition (below). It is his widow, "Keziah Sims" who is among the evicted settlers listed on the 1809 Elk River Intruders list. Supposedly she went on to remarry Judge William Cocke and they moved to MS where she died in 1820. 

Almon Sims stated that "the old ones" in his family knew about the Simses of the Elk River settlement. He said there was a will for Parish Sims, destroyed by fire, that mentioned wife Grizel and brother William and Benjamin Murrell executor.