John Issac Nickell, Sr.

Find a Grave

Birth: 1720, Ireland

Death: Aug. 24, 1774 Staunton Augusta County Virginia, USA

Born in County Tyrone, Ulster, Ireland, near Gortin where (1932) several families of this name are still settled. In 1749 he bought a plantation of 400 acres on Moffett's Branch, Middle River of the Shenandoah in Augusta County, Virginia, a Scotch-Irish settlement and about 10 miles northwest of the present city of Staunton, VA. His six sons served in the cause of American Independence in the Revolution and he was a member of the Expedition to Western Pennsylvania against the French and Indians in 1758. He granted his eldest son, John, the greater part of the Plantation in Augusta and his other children all settled on the Greenbrier River, then the western most settlement of the Colonies. He was buried in Augusta County.

More About JOHN NICKELL and MARY LEWIS NICKELL: Marriage: Bef. 1738, Unknown

More About JOHN NICKELL and BARBARA MCCOMBE: Marriage: 1755

Children of JOHN NICKELL and MARY LEWIS NICKELL are:

JOHN NICKELL JR, b. Abt. 1738, Staunton, Augusta County, Virginia; d. 1807, Staunton, Augusta County, Virginia.

THOMAS NICKELL, b. 1740, Staunton, Augusta County, Virginia; d. April 03, 1807, Monroe County, Virginia.

ELIZABETH NICKELL, b. Abt. 1748, Augusta County, Virginia; d. Abt. 1808, Augusta County, Virginia.

JOSEPH NICKELL I, b. January 10, 1749/50, Staunton, Augusta County, Virginia; d. August 18, 1829, Montgomery County, Kentucky.

ISAAC NICKELL, b. March 31, 1752, Staunton, Augusta County, Virginia; d. October 02, 1839, Monroe County, Virginia.

Children of JOHN NICKELL and BARBARA MCCOMBE are:

SUSANNAH NICKELL, b. 1756 d. 1837, Unknown.

ROBERT NICKELL, b. 1757, Unknown; d. 1838, Unknown.

ANDREW NICKELL, b. 1759, Unknown; d. October 06, 1838, Unknown.

Family links:

Spouses:

 Mary Sara Lewis Nickell (1720 - 1755)

Barbara McComb Nickell (1735 - 1804)
Children:
Thomas Sr. Nickell (1740 - 1807)*
Joseph Nickell (1750 - 1829)*
Isaac Nickell (1751 - 1839)*
*Calculated relationship

Burial: John Nickell Family Cemetery Augusta County Virginia, USA Plot: unknown

Created by: Earnest Nickell Record added: Oct 28, 2011 Find A Grave Memorial# 79409168

Volume I page 14. February 11, 1745. [7] John Nichols and William Wright quailed. Attorneys. CHRONICLES OF THE SCOTCH-IRISH SETTLEMENT IN VIRGINIA Volume III, page 126. Page 265 - 24th March, 1755, John [his___mark] Nickel's will. To wife, Barbara; to eldest son John; to sons, Joseph and Isaac, to son Thomas; to daughter Elizabeth. Executors, wife Barbara and her brother Andrew McCombe. Teste: Alexander Blair, James Reburn. Proved 17th August 1774, by the witnesses. Executors qualify [Barbara___mark] with John Poage and Joseph Reburn. page 274 - 2th August 1774. John Nickle's estate appraised. Receipts as follows, viz: 27th August, 1774 - John Nickle, for his part of his legacy; Thomas, for his part of his legacy. 27th August, 1774- Order by Ben. Lewis to pay to Andrew Ralstone £l.10, part of Ben's part of John Nickoll's estate. 27th August, 1774--Order by Andrew Nickle to pay his part ditto. 27th August 1774--Order by Elizabeth Nickle to pay her part ditto. 27th August 1774--Please let Andrew Ralstone have £3.0.0 out of my part of my father's estate,--William Craigg.

HAPLOGROUP I-M223 NICHOLS SURNAME PROJECT

The earliest record of the Nickell family dates back to the mid 1700s, when John Nickell came to this country from Ulster, County Tyrone, Ireland. John Nickell brought the Nickell family to America. Upon arrival, he settled in what is listed in the records as "Stauton, Augusta County, Virginia." However, there is no Stauton in Augusta County, but, there is a Staunton, which is likely the location spoken of in the records. In 1738, he married a woman in Ireland who likely had the surname Lewis. Together they had five children. It is uncertain whether his wife passed away, or they separated. However, after moving to America, John Nickell remarried a woman by the name of Barbara McCombe, approximately 1755 in Staunton, Augusta County, Virginia. Together, they had three children (per Walter William Dalitsch III, September 1999).

The following is based on information from "Chronological Genealogy" by Joe Nickell (1932):

"John Nickell immigrated from Ulster, County Tyrone, Ireland, near the town of Gortin, and settled in Augusta County, Virginia about 1738. Near Gortin, in 1932, several families of this name are still settled. About 1755 he married (2nd? wife) Barbara McCombe of Virginia. Their children were born in Augusta County; and his six sons served in the American Revolution of 1776. In 1749 he bought a plantation of 400 acres on Moffett's Branch, Middle River of the Shenandoah, in Augusta County, Virginia, (in) a Scotch-Irish settlement and about 10 miles northwest of the present city of Staunton, VA. He married Barbara McCombe, the daughter of Rebekah Young McCombe and granddaughter of John Young, Jr., and they had seven children [Ed: Susannah wasn't listed.] His six sons served the cause of American Independence in the Revolution against the French and Indians in 1758. He granted his eldest son, John, the greater part of the Plantation in Augusta and his other children all settled on the Greenbrier River, then the westernmost settlement of the Colonies. He was buried in Augusta County." (retrieved August 18, 2007 from http://nickell.tierranet.com/john.htm).

The following is from Demoy W. Schulz, a "long respected" Nickell family researcher (1994):

"I believe that John was married to a LEWIS before the union to young Barbara McCOMBE. Theory is also that Barbara was a minor when they 'married' in 1755 and that John's will (dated Mar 24, 1755) was, in essence, a marriage contract. This, then, would make children John, b.1838; Joseph, b.1740; Isaac, b.1750; and Elizabeth, b.1854; from a first marriage.

"In 1760 JOHN NICKELL, Sr., deeded his son, John Jr., 250 A of his Moffitt Creek farm for 5 lbs - the land he'd willed him in 1755. It is reasonable to assume that John Jr. was 21 when his father deeded him the land. And - since Thomas Sr., his 2nd son, but not necessarily his 2nd child, was a father in 1761. According to the gravestone inscription of his oldest child, MARGARET NICKELL McCALLISTER, he must have been born no later than 1743. Thomas Sr., may have married young since he evidently had problems accepting his step- mother - but surely not at age 15 or 16.

"Those two facts led to the assumption that John Nickell, Sr., was born nearer 1715/20 than 1728, as stated in Gen. Joe Nickell's 1932 Nickell Genealogy. That 1728 date may have come from an article in the 5th Series of The Pennsylvania Archives, Vol. #1, which states that JOHN NICHOLAS, age 30, from Bedoney, Ireland, volunteered for the Expedition to Western PA in 1758. According to the Typographical Dictionary of Ireland by Samuel Lewis, Gortin is a village in the parish of Lower Badony (Bedoney). There are many records of a JOHN NICHOLAS buying and selling land in Augusta Co., VA, at the same time our JOHN NICKELL, Sr., was there. It was most likely JOHN NICHOLAS - not JOHN NICKELL, Sr., - who went on that expedition.

"When John, Sr., came to America is not known. Nothing was found to indicate that any of his children were born in Europe so presumably he arrived before 1739. Several passenger lists were checked but JOHN NICKEL, age 25, from Rotterdam on The Friendship; qualified 3 Sep 1739, arrived in Philadelphia, PA (Pennsylvania German Pioneers by Carl Boyer III-256) was the only one that fit the guesstimated' age of John Sr., very well. Of course he wasn't German, but from the information given he could have left from Rotterdam - not resided there. NICKEL is definately the German spelling of the name but the name is so frequently spelled wrong that it may have been spelled wrong on the passenger list.

"Court records and early family records prove beyond any doubt that JOHN NICKELL, Sr., whose will was probated 17 August 1774 in Augusta Co., VA, was the father of all 8 of the indicated children. Those same records prove beyond any doubt that BARBARA McCOMBE NICKELL was -not- the mother of all 8! Who John, Sr., married first is not known with certainty, but he probably married a Lewis.

"An old history of Greenbrier Co., VA, stated that ISAAC NICKELL and Captain JOHN LEWIS, under whom he served at Point Pleasant, VA, on 10 Oct 1774, were related but that neither of them knew of the relationship. Though there were three Capt. John Lewis' at the time, Isaac probably served under the son of BENJAMIN and SUSANNAH NICKELL LEWIS, who recruited his men from the Second Creek are of Monroe and Greenbrier Counties - the locale of the Nickell homesteads. Isaac and Capt. Lewis no doubt knew of the relationship - maybe the historians did not.

"In 1870 HARVEY A. NICKELL (1850-1926), son of JAMES MADISON NICKELL, wrote the earliest known Nickell Genealogy - but he included only the Monroe Co., WV, Nickells. Perhaps they were the only Nickells he knew - or perhaps he wrote only of Monroe Nickells because he was gathering information for the History of Monroe County, WV which was published in 1916. According to Harvey A., the Nickells originally came from Scotland to Augusta Co., VA.

"In 1911 ANDREW WASHINGTON NICKELL (1841-1911) of Beatrice, NE, left his Nickell lineage with his children. He wrote, 'My great great grandfather came from Ireland and settled in Augusta Co., VA.' Probably both Harvey and Andrew were right! John Sr., was probably born in Ulster, Ireland, but was of Scotch descent. Hence he was one of the thousands of the so called "Scotch-Irish" to come to America, who weren't Irish at all. But, he and his children settled among the Scotch-Irish Ulstermen in Augusta Co., VA in what is now Monroe Co, WV" (retrieved August 18, 2007 from http://nickell.tierranet.com/john.htm).

The following is from a web posting retrieved August 18, 2007 from http://nickell.tierranet.com/staunton/staunton.htm.

March 1999: Robert Nickell (e-mail Bob) of Poway, CA, recently visited Staunton, Virginia (visit their Web Page), the initial homestead location of Papa John and his family. He wrote me with some of his findings about Papa John and other NICKELLs that were recorded in various documents there. Bob has been active in NICKELL genealogy for some time and is very interested in our heritage.

The following is a copy of the e-mail he sent:

"We visited the Staunton library for a couple of hours, and found it to be a treasure trove of information about the early settlers of Augusta County. The town was founded by John Lewis in the late 1720s or early 1730s, and it would appear that John Nickell may have been indentured to Lewis for a number of years as a young man, in order to pay off the price of the passage from Belfast to the colonies. That is only speculation, but it it almost certain that John Nickell married one of the Lewis girls, with whom he had five children, one of whom (the fourth child) was Joseph Nickell, born on 10 January 1750.

"The records show that John Nickell acquired 400 acres on Moffat's Branch of the Middle River (in California we would say the Middle Fork of the Shenandoah River) in 1749. We drove out to Moffat's Branch Road west and north of Staunton to try to find the location of the Nickell farm, and took pictures of some of the current farming operations along the creek. However, no Nickells are currently living (or at least have no telephone numbers) in Augusta County. Some live in nearby counties, but it appears that the Nickell farm may have had its title transferred. We did not have time on this trip to check out the county records to find out when that title transfer took place.

"Joseph is shown in the Joe Nickell book as having left Augusta County for Kentucky in 1788, but that is not accurate. After John Nickell died in 1774, it is almost certain that Joseph (then 24) either moved (or had already moved, since his eldest son John was born in Greenbrier in 1771) to the Greenbrier area of what is now West Virginia, and settled on a farm on Second Creek of the Greenbrier River. He is known to have sold 165 acres at that location for $ 400 in 1788 or 1789, and to have headed for Kentucky after that sale. He originally settled on Tate's Creek in Madison County, Kentucky, for about three years and then acquired 214 1/2 acres on the west fork of Storer's Creek in Bourbon County, Kentucky, on 17 July 1792. Joseph may have received a land grant in the Greenbrier area for his service in the Virginia militia during the Revolution, since he served with Captain James Henderson's Company and fought in the battle of Point Pleasant in 1774 (the same year that his father died).

"Three of the seven children of Joseph and Elizabeth Fowler were born in Greenbrier, including "Black John" (15 November 1771) and Isaac (1775). Black John must have married Elsy Wilson in Kentucky at the age of 19, since the marriage is supposed to have taken place in 1790. After the marriage, the couple seems to have lived in Clark County, Kentucky, later moving to Morgan County, Kentucky. By the way, the 1790 Kentucky census shows Joseph Nickle and Thomas Nickle (no wives and children listed) in Fayette County, Kentucky. The 1800 census shows Joseph Nickle, John Nickle (I presume Black John), Thomas Nickle, and Robert Nickle (the second child of Joseph), all listed as living in Montgomery County, Kentucky. Again, no wives or children. These are the only Nickell listings in either census. The counties in Kentucky may have been very fluid in those days.

"If you ever get the chance, Augusta County is a good place to explore for information. I hope to get to Greenbrier for a quick look, and then I need to spend some time in Kentucky."

Bob continued in a follow up message:

"The Frances K. Castle Givens writeup in one of the books I found in the Staunton library gives the Nickell-Lewis children births as John (1738), Elizabeth (1748), Thomas (1749)[Ed: 1739?], Joseph (10 January 1750), and Isaac (1752). The Nickell-McCombe children births are given as Susannah (1756), Robert (1757), and Andrew (1759). The long time separation between John and Elizabeth makes me think that something else happened -- perhaps even another wife. We have some work to do."

Birth: 1720, Ireland

Death: Aug. 24, 1774 Staunton Augusta County Virginia, USA

Born in County Tyrone, Ulster, Ireland, near Gortin where (1932) several families of this name are still settled. In 1749 he bought a plantation of 400 acres on Moffett's Branch, Middle River of the Shenandoah in Augusta County, Virginia, a Scotch-Irish settlement and about 10 miles northwest of the present city of Staunton, VA. His six sons served in the cause of American Independence in the Revolution and he was a member of the Expedition to Western Pennsylvania against the French and Indians in 1758. He granted his eldest son, John, the greater part of the Plantation in Augusta and his other children all settled on the Greenbrier River, then the western most settlement of the Colonies. He was buried in Augusta County.

More About JOHN NICKELL and MARY LEWIS NICKELL: Marriage: Bef. 1738, Unknown

More About JOHN NICKELL and BARBARA MCCOMBE: Marriage: 1755

Children of JOHN NICKELL and MARY LEWIS NICKELL are:

• JOHN NICKELL JR, b. Abt. 1738, Staunton, Augusta County, Virginia; d. 1807, Staunton, Augusta County, Virginia.
• THOMAS NICKELL, b. 1740, Staunton, Augusta County, Virginia; d. April 03, 1807, Monroe County, Virginia.
• ELIZABETH NICKELL, b. Abt. 1748, Augusta County, Virginia; d. Abt. 1808, Augusta County, Virginia.
• JOSEPH NICKELL I, b. January 10, 1749/50, Staunton, Augusta County, Virginia; d. August 18, 1829, Montgomery County, Kentucky.
• ISAAC NICKELL, b. March 31, 1752, Staunton, Augusta County, Virginia; d. October 02, 1839, Monroe County, Virginia.

Children of JOHN NICKELL and BARBARA MCCOMBE are:

• SUSANNAH NICKELL, b. 1756 d. 1837, Unknown.
• ROBERT NICKELL, b. 1757, Unknown; d. 1838, Unknown.
• ANDREW NICKELL, b. 1759, Unknown; d. October 06, 1838, Unknown.

Family links:

Spouses:

• Mary Sara Lewis Nickell (1720 - 1755)
• Barbara McComb Nickell (1735 - 1804)

Children:

• Thomas Nickell (1740 - 1807)*
• Joseph Nickell (1750 - 1829)*
• Calculated relationship

Burial: John Nickell Family Cemetery Staunton Staunton City Virginia, USA Plot: unknown

Edit Virtual Cemetery info [?]

Created by: Earnest Nickell Record added: Oct 28, 2011 Find A Grave Memorial# 79409168