It's my wish to share what I know about the simple gift of family. Family names include Nichols, Edmondson, Appleby, Reitzel, Smith, Richardon,Thompson, Crapson, Little, Barton,Mikel,South,and Free(Ferree) among others.

Simple Gifts

'Tis the gift to be simple,
'tis the gift to be free,
'tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
It will be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed.
To turn, turn will be our delight,
'Til by turning, turning we come round right

From Thee I Came

As a young girl I loved to read books of families who lived long ago. As I grew older I started to appreciate the stories my parents told my sisters and me of our ancestors and came to realize that these were just like the stories I loved so much. The only difference was these were my stories because they were about my people. They were stories of pioneers who worked hard, moved from place to place, fought wars and did what it took to survive. So now I share with you some of the stories about these people.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

The James and Rachel (Jackson) Nichols Family

James Nichols was born in 1762 in Pennsylvania. This was a time of turmoil for the Scotch Irish colonists who had settled this area. The French Indian War was being fought all along the frontier. We don't know anything about James as a child but I imagine he was born in a cabin carved out of the wilderness. His father was also James and he had a brother Erasmus and a sister Jane but this is all that is known. Whoever his mother was she had to have been a strong woman to survive in this lonely wilderness and bear at least three children.

The first actual record known of James is in 1798 in Pennsylvania . By this time he had married Rachel Jackson who was also born in Pennsylvania, although there is nothing known about her ancestry. Their first child, a daughter Sarah, was born in Pennsylvania in 1798 followed by Erasmus in 1800. Sometime between 1800 and 1803 the Nichols family moved to Nelson County, Kentucky. We can only imagine what a wilderness it still was at this time. The family likely took either Zane's Trace from Wheeling WV (then Virginia) southwest to Maysville (Limestone) on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River or floated down the Ohio from Wheeling to Maysville. From Maysville they would have taken the road from Maysville to Lexington and then a spur of the Wilderness Road to Bardstown in Nelson County, where they settled.

Not much is known of James and Rachel's time in Nelson County Kentucky except that their family grew. Thomas (my ancestor) was born November 5, 1803, Jane April 21, 1808, Harriet July 14, 1811, Eleanor September 27, 1813, Andrew December 27, 1815, Elizabeth 1816, and James December1, 1818. Because of information on the 1810 census I suspect a child was born and died between Thomas and Jane although I have no actual proof of this. They most likely lived west of Bardstown. In Rachel Jackson Nichols obituary it talks of her going to Cedar Creek Baptist Church when they lived in Kentucky. This old church was located about 4 miles west of Bardstown on the Bellwood Road, one mile south of Highway 62, near the site of Rogers Station.

In about 1820 the whole Nichols family left Kentucky and headed to Indiana where they settled in Hendricks County. This is where they stayed...the moving was over.

  I do not mind this being shared but please give me the courtesy of written acknowledgement.                                 Thank you             Margaret Rothrock
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