NICHOLSON, (Col.) James W., Macon County, AL., then Claiborne Parish,
Louisiana
Submitted by Mike Miller
USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be
reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any
other organization or persons. Persons or organizations
desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent
of the contributor, or the legal representative of the
submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with
proof of this consent. Files may be printed or copied for
personal use only.
Nicholson. Few persons in the South have acquired a more enviable
reputation in their profession than Col. James W. Nicholson, the
accomplished president and professor of mathematics in the Louisiana State
university and Agricultural & Mechanical college. This reputation is
largely due to his mathematical attainments, which are fast becoming
recognized throughout the scientific world and to the general ability and
fidelity with which he has invariably discharged the various duties and
trusts committed to him. Colonel Nicholson was born in Macon county, Ala.,
June 16, 1844, but is to all intents a native of Louisiana, since his
father, W. B. Nicholson, moved with his family to Claiborne parish, La.,
only six months after the birth of his son, and has continued to reside
there ever since. The family connections in the northern portion of the
state are very numerous on the maternal side, and include numerous names
closely identified with the history of the state. Colonel Nicholson's
early training was largely under the guidance of Prof. J. W. Boring, who
prepared him for his admission to the freshman class of Homer college at
the age of fourteen years. He was probably fairly well prepared for
admission. He had inherited a robust constitution, in fact he is at the
present time a model of physical health. His moral nature has been
developed as is usual in Christian families and Christian communities along
vigorous, healthful lines, and his intellectual advancement was fully up to
the requirements of the college which he entered, which were by no means of
a low order. The college at this time was under the management of such men
as Rev. Baxter Clegg, John. W. Stacy, John B. Gretter and Professor
Simmons, whose only view of an education was that it was intended to
develop rather than to adorn men, and all of whose methods and processes
were directed to this end. Under the guidance of such men as those a young
man of Mr. Nicholson's bent and genius was sure to develop rapidly. Even
during his preparatory course he had shown a strong preference for the
study of mathematics, and a singular aptitude in the mastery of its
principles. Details he cared but little about for the trend of his mind
from the beginning was toward originality--generalizations. The usual
methods of solution and a demonstration served to merely stimulate him to
search for new and unusual methods of reaching the same results. It is
said that he never received any aid in the solution of a mathematical
question, nor a single demerit for misconduct, while at college. His
devotion to mathematical study did not, however, prevent his taking a fair
stand in his classical studies. But his course of study was not to be
completed at this time. To him as to so many other young men in our
colleges in the year of 1861, the sound of war's alarm was the call to a
higher duty. While still in his sixteenth year, and with but a single year
more to study before graduation, he entered the confederate army in 1861 as
a private in Company B, Twelfth Louisiana infantry, under Col. Thomas M.
Scott, and served without interruption until the close of the war, and
until surrendered at Greensboro, N. C., only twenty-three days less than
four years from the date of his enlistment. It is doubtless due to his
extreme youth (and his continued occupation of study even during the war)
that he achieved no marked distinction among the brave fellows by whom he
was surrounded, most of whom were by many years his seniors. He was,
however, elected second sergeant of his company at Camp Green, Tenn., in
the spring of 1862, in that capacity participated in many of the great
battles of the war. Having returned home after the war, his first thought
was for a profession in life, and at first his mind turned toward the law,
and its study was commenced under the guidance of the late Judge W. B.
Egan, of Homer, La. This study was, however, of brief duration, for a
vacancy occurring, or rather being, for it was in the period of
reconstruction, in the chair of the professor of mathematics in Homer
college, he was induced to fill it temporarily and continued to fill it for
the term of two years. During this two years his old love for mathematical
study which had never quite left him returned with full force, and finding
teaching congenial, he resolved to make it his profession for life. About
six miles from Homer, the home of his boyhood, in the little town of
Arizona, an enterprise, most unusual in this section, had sprung into
being. A company had been organized, a large cotton factory had been
built, and a little village was springing into life around it. This seemed
to young Nicholson a fine opening for a school, and he accordingly gave up
his position in Homer college and started a new enterprise on his own
account. Suitable buildings were erected and Arizona seminary opened in
the fall with forty-five students, which number soon increased to 125 and
the success of the new enterprise was assured. But his alma mater had not
done with him yet. In 1870 he was elected professor of mathematics in
Homer college at a salary of $1,500 per annum. The school at Arizona,
still his property, did not flourish, however, after he had left it, as it
had done under his immediate management, and in the winter of 1872 he was
compelled to give up the college professorship and resume charge of the
school in order to save the property. For the next five years he labored
incessantly, the school surviving even the failure of the industrial
venture upon which the life of the village of Arizona depended, meanwhile
devoting himself with increasing ardor to the study of mathematics and
consequently adding both to his knowledge and his reputation as a student
in that branch of study in which in after years he was destined to acquire
distinction. During the summer of 1877 upon the reorganization of the
Louisiana State university and Agricultural & Mechanical college, which
institutions had just been united into one, Professor Nicholson was elected
to the chair of mathematics in this university, which stands at the head of
the public-school system of the state. This position he has ever since
continued to fill with credit to himself, the institution and the state.
On April 3, 1883, Col. William Preston Johnston, then president of the
Louisiana State university, having resigned the presidency to accept the
presidency of Tulane university in New Orleans, Professor Nicholson was
elected president of the university, in which he still continues to hold
the chair of mathematics, discharging with great facility and efficiency
the duties of both positions, either one of which would have taxed the
energies of a less vigorous man. But his even temperament and firm
constitution fit him to accomplish tasks beyond the powers of the average
man, and the work of the president and the instructor alike prospered in
his hands. This being a military school, the new rank of colonel was
conferred upon him by the governor, a title which in this military age
seems to be more generally recognized than those which testify to civic
honors of greater worth, consequently, instead of Professor Nicholson or
President Nicholson he is generally accosted as Colonel Nicholson. But
whether as professor or president or colonel, honor seem to sit lightly
upon him, and he is the same genial companion, wise counselor and
sympathetic friend. His administrative capacity is of high order. Full of
expedients, his mind being always on his work and his heart in it, the
school over which he presides is never allowed to stagnate, or to become
disorderly. As in his mathematics, so here the solution of the problems
may not be expected or usual, but they are sure to be prompt, vigorous and
effective. His magnetic nature draws hearts to him, and there are few
among either pupils or associates who do not esteem him as a friend. The
position of president of the State university Colonel Nicholson still
(1892) occupies and has continued to occupy (with a brief interval) since
his election in 1883, as above stated.
Colonel Nicholson's reputation is chiefly that of a mathematician, this
sketch would be imperfect without special mention of him in this
particular, and of some of the contributions which he has made to
mathematical science. As already intimated he has an independent,
inventive and progressive mind, always more disposed to invent new methods
than to passively follow old ones, and as a consequence he has extended in
several lines of first importance the scope of mathematical inquiry, and
his merit has been recognized by the foremost mathematicians of the world.
He is a member of the London Mathematical society (England), and also of
the Mathematical society, of New York. A partial list of his mathematical
works, formulas, etc., is as follows: A series of arithmetics and an
elementary algebra, adopted and in exclusive use in the public schools of
Louisiana. Also a treatise on "Isoperimetrical Geometry" in 1869, one on
the "Calculus of Finite Differences" in 1871, one on "Directed
Quantities"
in 1885, etc. His method of developing the last-named subject, which is a
new method of imaginaries, is entirely different from that of Argand or
Hamilton, and the author thinks of publishing the same at an early day. In
1868 he published a pamphlet on the "Trigonometrical Circle," a formula
which he devised for expressing the relation between the sides and
functions of the angles of right-angled triangles, which has been
incorporated into some of the standard works on trigonometry, and taught in
some of the best colleges and universities in this country and Europe. In
1880 he published a pamphlet entitled "A New and Complete Demonstration of
the Binomial Theorem," which has received the highest commendation from the
most distinguished mathematicians of the country as "the neatest and most
complete improvement in mathematical science." He published a pamphlet on
the "Multisector," an instrument which be has invented for dividing an
angle into any number of equal parts. A meritorious paper of his on "a
simple and direct method of separating the roots of ordinary equations" was
read before the Mathematical society, of New York, May 7, 1892. His last
great contribution to mathematics is "A Direct and General Method of
finding the Real Roots of Numerical Equations to any Degree of Accuracy,"
"which is calculated," says a competent judge, "to place the discoverer in
the very front ranks of the distinguished mathematicians of the age." In
reference to this discovery Prof. B. M. Walker says: "In my judgment the
author has advanced a step over anything previously done in this direction,
and has made a most valuable contribution to mathematical science. Colonel
Nicholson married in Claiborne parish, July 30, 1876, Miss Sallie D. Baker,
a native of that parish, the daughter of Capt. James C. Baker, a native of
Georgia, a captain in the confederate army. By this marriage Colonel
Nicholson has five children: Gordon, Lilburne, Malcolm Dudley, Wilber
Fenner and Annie. Both Colonel Nicholson and his wife are members of the
Methodist church, in which they assume that delicacy of fervor and organic
interest which impels highest respect and conviction to others, and leads
them to find reverential sympathy and comfort in the formulated expressions
of the existing rubrics of the Christian faith. Colonel Nicholson is a
liberal patron of art, and nothing affords him more pleasure than to study
the faces and lives of the masters among men, for while he is firm in the
philanthropy of his religion, he believes man to be the crowning work of
creation, whose destiny is worthy the study and toil of ages. In all this
he holds the noblest of all possessions, a brave, intelligent and trusting
wife, whose sympathy and encouragement is a constant incentive to him to
work on, to penetrate still deeper in the hidden mysteries of his laborious
science. He is tall, being five feet eleven and a half inches in hight
[sic], and weighs 185 pounds. He has light grayish blue eyes and a face
which leaves the impression of power and capacity.
Biographical and Historical Memoires of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 278-280.
Published by the Goodspeed Publishing Company, Chicago, 1892.