Charles Noble Sims was born on May 18, 1835, in Fairfield, Indiana.

He was a clergyman, educator, and administrator. He studied at Indiana Ashbury University (B.A., 1859; M.A., 1861) and received an honorary M.A. from Ohio Wesleyan in 1860. He became the 1st president of Valparaiso Male and Female College (1860-1862). In 1862, he began to work as a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church and held several pastorates in Baltimore, Newark, and Brooklyn. In 1871, Indiana Ashbury University conferred upon him the degree of D.D., and in 1882, an honorary LL.D. In 1881, he was elected the 3rd Chancellor of Syracuse University. Sims pushed the university to pay off debts, establish endowments, and expand the university with new buildings, e.g., Holden Observatory and John Crouse Memorial College for Women. He retired in 1893 and after a few years, he became minister of the First Methodist Church in Syracuse. He was made a trustee of the Syracuse University in 1903.

In 1858, he married Eliza Ann Foster (1839–1920). He died on March 27, 1908, in Liberty, Indiana.