COMPENDIUMOF BIOGRAPHY
Of Henry County, Indiana
B.F.Bowen
1920
Surnames mentioned in this biography are: Nicholson, Williams, Morgan, Lamb,
Reeves, Julian,Gentry, Bradbury, Boyd, Ruby, Bundy,
ANDREWNICHOLSON.
Andrew Nicholson, a retired citizen of New Castle, Henry County,
Indiana, was born in Guilford County, North Carolina, November 5, 1805, near
the battlefield on which General NathanielGreen, of Revolutionary fame, won
one of his remarkable victories, and on which field, when a boy, Mr.
Nicholson found many a rusty old bayonet and other grim relics of the
sanguinary conflict. The parents of Mr. Nicholson were John and Mary
(Williams) Nicholson, the former of whom was born in North Carolina and the
latter in Maryland. When Andrew Nicholson was about twenty years of age the
family came to the west and located in Ross County, Ohio, near Richmond.
After several years' residence in RossCounty, they moved to Iowa, where the
mother died and the father then came to Henry County. Indiana, where he died
from the result of an accident when he was eighty-four years old. The father
served in the war of. 1812 and Andrew still remembers his own small errands
in going back and forth with messages from and to the regiment. The martial
fervor seems to have pervaded the family, as Andrew himself long afterwards
had two sons in the Civil War of 1861-65 and receiving news at one time that
one of these (John) was sick in hospital, went there to bring the boy home
and on the way back encountered a company of General John Morgan's men, but
was not molested and reached home in safety with his boy. It was the custom,
in the. Civil war days, for Samuel Hoover, a good reader, to gather the
neighbors together, mount a box and read the news as it came. When it was
reported that arelation or friend had lost his life in battle, all would
stand it without a murmur, but when it was announced that such relation had
been sent to Libby prison, the blood of the hearers would boil.
In the early days, while living in Wayne County, Indiana, Mr. Nicholson
worked in a brickyard at Richmond for sevendollars per month. A friend, Mark
Reeves, who later became a merchant at Cincinnati, Ohio, had worked in the
same yard, and some years afterward came from that city to New Castle to buy
a span of carriage horses for family use.In a crowd Andrew twitted him with
having once worked at seven dollars per month and created a great laugh.
Young Nicholson had educated himself at home with borrowed books and at
twenty-one began teaching, a vocation he followed for fifteen or twenty
years. One of his pupils was George W. Julian, afterwards a congressman of
considerable note. Spelling was committed to memory at school and
lexicographers differed in this respect, Walker, for instance, ending certain
words lith "ick" and "our," while Webster ended
thesame
words with "ic" and "or, as publick, public; rancor,rancour,
and so on. At one of the spelling matches in Nicholson's school.Julian added
the "k" to public, while a little girl left it off, andJulian went
to the foot the Webster standard having been adopted. Julian was angered at
this and quit school, but afterward was reconciled and returned. The schools
were on the subscription plan, at a tuition fee of one dollar and ahalf per
quarter for each pupil, yet Mr. Nicholson saved money and purchased afarm of
eighty acres, to which he devoted his time and attention in the summers. In
1859 Mr. Nicholson came to Henry County, Indiana, and bought a farmof one
hundred and eighty-four acres near Rich Square meeting house and cultivated
it in part until his Sons went off to war, when he sold the farm andcame to
New Castle and bought an eighty-acre tract, on which he erected his present
residence. He has retired from active work and has his money loaned out on
interest. He has platted part of his eight acres into residence lots, and has
occupied his present dwelling for thirty-one years. At the age of
twenty-five, Mr. Nicholson married Miss Sarah Ann Lamb for his first wife, to
which marriage were born seven children, namely:Abner, a mechanic and farmer
in Wayne county, Indiana; Julia Corwin, in Urich,Henry County, Missouri;
Luther was a soldier in the Civil war and died at home when thirty years old;
Cornelia was married to Francis Gentry and died in middle life: Eveline
became Mrs. James Bradbury and died when about fifty year sold; Charles died
at forty, and John, the soldier-boy before spoken of, died at thirty-five.
The second marriage of Mr. Nicholson took place in 1870 to Miss Mary Boyd, of
Brownsville. Union County, Indiana, but anative of Harrison County, Kentucky,
and a daughter of James and Nancy (Ruby)Boyd who settled in Union County,
Indiana, when Mrs. Nicholson was but a child.No children have been born to
this second marriage. In religion Mr. Nicholson was formerly of the United
Brethren faith, but for the past thirty years has been a Presbyterian, his
present wife being of the same faith. In politics he was formerly a Whig, but
is now a Republican and for three years served as county commissioner in
Wayne County.At a recent public meeting Hon. Martin L.Bundy delivered a brief
oral address,taking Andrew Nicholson and his long and useful life as his
text, and in connection there with reviewing the history of the United States
as it was developed during the ninety-six years of Mr. Nicholson's remarkable
career. The speech was a good and well received.