Re: Chew, Lowden, Nichols Families, Perry
NICHOLS, CHEW, LOWDEN
Posted By: Herbert Standing (email) In Response To: Re: Chew, Lowden, Nichols Families, Perry (susan young)
Date: 5/5/2004 at 11:30:54
This is in response to Susan Young's posting of 4/27/2004. The Hutchins family mentioned is traced in the three volume work: _Hutchins-Hutchens: Descendants of Strangeman Hutchins_, compiled by Rita H. Townsend. The first volume was published in 1979 and the two-volume supplement was published in 1992. I was one of those who assisted Rita Townsend in collecting data for the two-volume supplement and investigated the family of Napoleon Bonaparte Hutchins ("Bonaparte") who settled in the vicinity of Wiscotta, a village near Redfield in northwestern Union Township, Dallas County, Iowa, ca. 1869-70. I believe that they came to Iowa from Cass County, on the southern border of Michigan, although Bonaparte had been born in Virginia and may have lived in North Carolina and Ohio.---- The Hutchins family had been Quakers in Virginia for a number of generations. Bonaparte may not have been a member of Friends when he came to Iowa. There had been a small Friends Meeting in Wiscotta which began about 1865 and was discontinued in 1876. It was a Preparative Meeting of Bear Creek Monthly Meeting of Friends, centered at Bear Creek Meeting in east-central Union Township, about seven miles from Wiscotta.
Following a separation in Bear Creek Monthly Meeting in 1877 and an evangelical revival, a new Wiscotta Friends Meeting was started which was something of a mission of Bear Creek Friends Church. This Wiscotta Meeting continued intermitently until about 1910. Napoeon Bonaparte Hutchins was received into membership by Bear Creek Monthly Meeting on April 29, 1882 and seems to have continued as a member until his death on April 4, 1904. According to my records, Aletha Lenora Hickman's mother was Sarah Jane Hutchins "Sade", daughter of Napoleon Bonaparte Hutchins and his wife, Martha A. Davis. Sarah was born about 1851 in Michigan. She first married T.B. Hickman, who seems to have been known as "Kellog". They had three children, of whom two lived to adulthood, Napoeon Bonaparte Hickman and Aletha Lenora Hickman ("Nora"). Sarah (Hutchins) Hickman married 2/nd, E. Allen Mendenhall. They had two sons, of whom one lived to adulthood, W. Alfred Mendenhall.Sarah (Hutchins) (Hickman) Mendenhall and E. Allen Mendenhall were divorced. Sarah married 3rd ____ Merical.---- Aletha Lenora Hickman ("Nora") was a daughter or T. B. Hickman and Sara Jane Hutchins. Nora apparently lived with her Hutchins grandparents in Wiscotta during much of her childhood. Nora married John H. Nichols in 1891, son of Thomas J. Nichols and Permelia Fink. It appears that Nora and John were both living in Wiscotta at the time of their marriage. John H. Nichols had been born in 1861 in Indiana, according to census records. John and Nora (Hickman) Nichols moved to the Xenia coal mining area near Woodward, Iowa, where John was employed as a teamster in a mine. They seem to have had at least seven children: Edward H. Blanche B. _____ d. before 1910, Claude E., Pauline G., Madeline C.,andThomas. John H. Nichols died in 1914 (perhaps in a coal mining accident) and was buried in the Xenia Cemetery. The 1920 U.S. Census records indicate that Nora Nichols was living in Des Moines, IA, running a boarding house, children living with her: Pauline, age 17, Madeline, age 14, Marion (son), age 11. ----- I have no record of the parents of John H.Nichols as being Quakers, although the Nichols name seems to have been rather common among Friends in Indiana. I do not know whether the parents of John Nichols came to Iowa, or whether John H. Nichols came on his own. --- Herbert Standing.
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