William Nichols
Eldest Son of Isaac & Margery Nichols
This article gives some contextual information about the Nichols family (as well as the Quakers) at the time of their arrival in Loudoun County in the mid 1700s. William’s sister Catherine would marry James Hatcher in 1766. The article linked above also makes some connections between the Cost family (Barbary Cost married Simon Yakey in 1807) and the Nichols family.
WILLIAM NICHOLS, (1742-1802), in 1770 married Sarah Spencer, daughter of Samuel and Mary Dawes Spencer of Loudoun County, Virginia, at his farm between Hamilton & Purcellville. William’s sister, Mary, married Solomon Hoge. Their granddaughter, Sarah E. Hoge, married Nathan Brown Nichols, great grandson of William and Mary Spencer Nichols.
Notes for WILLIAM NICHOLS:
Ref: The Hoge, Nichols and Related Families - Biographical/Historical - A Sequential Arrangement of Genealogical Data, by William D. Nichols, 4578 Rain Park Drive, Fairview Park, OH 44126, Sept. 1969 pg. 256.
Members of the Nichols and Hoge families emigrated to Virginia from Pennsylvania in the early seventeen hundred and settled in general area of Frederick, Fairfax and Loudoun counties. At the turn of the century many of their descendants pushed on westward to Ohio, the first state to be carved out of the great Northwest Territory. Endless hours of research would be necessary to trace, in detail, the linage of the representatives of these two families who are not included in the preceding genealogy but who are the subjects of various historical sketches. Suffice it to say that the multitude of references to these names found in Hinshaw's Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy give evidence of close family relationships.
“The Nichols family is of English extraction and was founded in VA by two brothers, Isaac and William Nichols, followers of George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends. After settling in Loudoun County, Virginia, they continued to reside there the remainder of their lives; their tombstones may be found in the graveyard of the Friends Meeting House on Goose Creek. William Nichols married Sarah Spencer and had three sons, Isaac, Samuel, and William, and two daughters, Mrs. Mary Piggot and Mrs. Edith Tate.” [It is clear that William was son of and not brother of Isaac Nichols. Thomas Nichols was a follower of George Fox’s theology and came to Loudoun County with his brother, Isaac.]
An unattributed source states: “William (I), eldest son of Isaac Nichols and Margery Cox, was born in December, 1742 or early 1743 likely in Chester County, Pa... His father was of Chester County, Pa. and his parents were married in New Castle County., Delaware where his mother’s family lived.
“William was raised near Goose Creek in Loudoun County, Virginia. His parents were respected and solemn Quakers. It seems that William, as a young man, lived for a time nearer to Fairfax Monthly Meeting as he was liberated to marry Sarah Spencer 30 December 1769 by Fairfax Monthly Meeting, Virginia, and granted a certificate to transfer to Abington Monthly Meeting, Pennsylvania, where Sarah was a member. They were married 22 March 1770, likely at Abington Monthly Meeting. Shortly thereafter, they removed to Loudoun County, Virginia Goose Creek neighborhood, where William and Sarah raised their family.
“Their farm was located about two miles north of the village of Goose Creek (now Lincoln , between the towns of Hamilton and Purcellville and slightly to the south) afterwards came into possession of their son, William Nichols (II), who built an addition to the house to accommodate his mother, Sarah, after the death of his father and in accordance to the will of the grandfather, Isaac Nichols. The house was sold to William Hatcher in 1836 when William (II) and family removed to Columbiana County, Ohio, and was occupied by William McCray in 1891.”
A letter written July 29, 1891, by William (III) to William Piggot of Virginia, states: “My grandfather [William Nichols I] lived and died on the farm father sold to William Hatcher, in 1836, now the William McCray farm.... [He] died about the year 1800, aged nearly 60. Grandmother [Sarah Spencer] lived seven years after him with my father [William II]. I think the small brick room attached to the stone house at McCray’s was built expressly for her. I often heard father speak of Nathan Spencer.”
“William Nichols, the subject of this sketch, died shortly before 13 December 1802 as that is the date his father, Isaac, wrote a codicil to his will addressing the issue of the death of his ‘eldest son, William.’ The estimated birth date of William (I) is noted as 1742 by many secondary sources. I note the 22 March 1742 marriage date of his parents suggests he was born no earlier than December 1742 and easily in early 1743 so the claim that William (I) was ‘aged nearly 60’ corroborates the late 1742 - early 1743 birth date I suggest here... That would place the death date of Sarah (Spencer) Nichols about 1809 or 1810... Nathan Spencer (b. 1734), the brother of Sarah Spencer, lived north and adjacent to the Isaac Nichols land purchased from Joseph Dixon. Nathan Spencer, Sr. purchased 380 acres from Thomas Janney who was granted the land in 1741. Nathan had a son, Nathan (b. 1767). Both were very close to the Nichols family and one of them witnessed the 1802 codicil to the will of Isaac Nichols, Sr.”
As reported by the Goose Creek Friends of the Thomas Balch Library: “In 1778 the Baltimore Yearly Meeting of the Friends concluded that the practice of hiring slaves to be contrary to their Christian Testimony and Discipline. Friends were encouraged to be more excited and diligent for the improvement of Black people in religious and school education. Even though a committee had been formed to care for freed slaves about a decade before Fairfax thus queried the Yearly Meeting, still it took a long time for the resulting directives to be thoroughly enforced. There must have been trouble at Goose Creek about the hiring of slaves, for in 1824 we find Moses Gibson of that place stating that he no longer had slaves in his hire and would never again hire any slaves. At Waterford, several Friends had been disowned for buying slaves and in 1856 there was a general crackdown on those who only hired them. In that year, a committee from Fairfax treated with William Stone for hiring a slave, disowned Mary Jane Hough for doing the same, and would have subjected her husband Isaac to the same fate if he hadn’t said he was sorry and wouldn’t do it again. Mary Jane was a galvanized Friend, not born a friend, who had joined the society after her marriage, whereas Isaac was a birthright member. Old customs die hard, for this was 58 years after the first clear instructions had been given at the Yearly Meeting on the hiring of slaves! Even the owning of slaves did not cease instantly upon the decision of the Yearly Meeting in 1778. William Nichols of Goose Creek died in 1802, and slaves appear in the inventory of his estate. After that, any slave holders at Goose Creek were disowned.”
