Ross A. Nicholson
ROSS A NICHOLSON, proprietor of the Crawford County Observer, was born at Barnesville, Belmont county, Ohio, June 24, 1861, a son of John L, and Eleanor (Young) Nicholson, natives also of that State.
Ross A was three years of age when the family moved to Mahaska county, Iowa, where he was reared to manhood and received his education. His first work was on the New Sharron Star, of that county.
In 1885 he purchased of G A W Davison his present paper, which then had a circulation of about 350. Mr Nicholson has worked to make the paper a bright, newsy sheet; has increased the circulation to 800, and it is now a six-column quarto paper. It is one of the leading and best sheets published in the county, and the editor is deserving of much credit and praise for the able manner in which he had built it up to its present position. Politically, it is independent.
Mr Nicholson was married at Oskaloosa, Iowa, at the age of twenty-three years to Miss Lelia A Champion, who was reared and educated in Mahaska county, and a daughter of J J and Nancy Champion. Our subject and wife have one child, Una Fern, aged five years. Mr Nicholson is a member of the Masonic order, Lodge No 422, of Vail, and of the K of P, Ainsworth Lodge, No 148, of West Side, Iowa.
Source: BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF Crawford, Ida and Sac Counties, Iowa; The Lewis Publishing Company; Chicago; 1893; pages 384, 385
Submitted by Norm Prince