Nicol Family Photographs
Submitted by Kris Martin
My great great great grandfather Alexander Francis Nicol (1835-1922) was born to Robert and Amelia Nicol in Michigan, Robert was a Scottish immigrant that migrated from New Jersey around 1835 to Dearborn to work as a stone mason on the Dearborn Arsenal. After Robert passed away in 1850, Alex along with his mother and his two surviving siblings, Caroline and Robert Jr., migrated to Bremer County, Iowa. Alex's mother and siblings eventually moved to Montana.
Alex met and married his wife Martha Watts in October of 1856. Martha Watts was a daughter of early Bremer County pioneer family George (1800-1894) and Elizabeth (Churches) Watts (1803-1864) that had immigrated from Somerset England to the Tripoli area.
Alex picked up the career path of his father and was a mason in the Denver area until he retired. He served in the Civil War with two of brother in laws John Chadwick (husband of Ellen Watts) and John Kerr (husband of Frances Watts).
His daughter Mary Nicol Spragg Robinson (1862-1942), was a life long resident of Denver, IA. Her first husband John Brunswick Spragg (1859-1886) passed from typhoid fever, her second husband Fred Robinson was a handyman around Denver.
Mary's son John "Jack" Spragg (1886-1949) was one of the first barbers in Denver, he married Ellen Boyer in 1907 and opened his first shop in 1908. They had three daughters, Lucille, Thelma and Maryetta. He left the Denver area in 1918 and came back in 1939 and stayed until he fell ill in 1948. Alex's sons William, Albert, and Samuel also stayed in Bremer county, as did Etta who married a Farris (descendant of the original founders of Jefferson City).
Do you have something to contribute? Please contact the coordinator to submit your information!