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File contributed to the Fulton County ILGenWeb Project
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Source: The Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Fulton County
Munsell Publishing Co., Chicago, 1908

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The Biography of Fred R. NICHOLS 

[Surnames: COLEMAN, MANVILLE, NICHOLS] 

NICHOLS, FRED R. 

    
An integral part of the human force which keeps in operation the plant of the Parlin & Orendorff Plow Co. of Canton, is Fred R. Nichols, who served as millwright from the Spring of 1901 to the Spring of 1905. He is at the present time in the contracting business--and is now putting up a four-story brick office building and a two-compartment flat building besides smaller jobs. Mr. Nichols is a natural mechanic and since early youth has been absorbed and fascinated by the intricasies of machinery. He comes honestly by the inclination, as his father George W. Nichols was also a millwright. George W. Nichols was born in Pompey, Oneida Co. NY in 1822, and died in June 1904. He married Hannah Coleman, born in Pompey, and with her removed to the wilds of Iowa, changing his residence to Canton, IL in the summer of 1896. Mrs. Nichols died in 1894. Mr. Nichols has to his credit the planning and construction of the largest sawmill in the World, that of W. J. Young at Clinton, Iowa, and also built mills on Georgian Bay, Canada, several in Michigan and all up and down the Mississippi River. 
    
Fred R. Nichols was born in Clinton, Iowa in 1863 and was educated in the public schools. In Clinton, September 23, 1885, he married Mary H. Manville, daughter of Isaac Newton Manville of Clinton, Iowa, and they have had five children: Eva M., Harry M., Helen J., and Mary Elizabeth, and one who died in infancy. 
    
Mr. Nichols is a Republican. While a resident of Iowa he was for five years a member of the National Guard (State Militia) and received an honorable discharge. He is a member of the Court of Honor and the Knights and Ladies of Honor.