Levi Nichols

Levi, son of Roger and Bethia (Winslow) Nichols, was born in Hingham on November 9, 1739. Levi moved to Winchendon, Mass. in 1773, and erected a spacious tavern stand on the spot where Cromwell fisher's house now stands, about midway between the present village and the centre. There he did a large business, and was well known and popular. About 1787 he removed to Keene, N.H. and continued the same business. About 1790 he came to Springfield and bought some two hundred acres of land of Lieut. Joseph Little and James Bates, in Eureka, comprising what is a present known as the Nichols place, owned by Henry Barnard, and a portion of the farm of C. Horace Hubbard. He erected two dwelling houses, just west of the present barns and highway. In one of them he lived until his death in 1809 and the other was occupied by the father of Mrs. Nichols, Lieut. Nathaniel Sawyer, who served through the War of the Revolution, d. in 1805 and was one of the first to be interred in the new cemetery on the common.

About 1800 he erected on the east sid of the road a building for a saddler's shop, which was carried on by his sons Luke and Thomas. In the basement he had a nail shop, where a rude machine, operated by footpower, punched out the nails from a strip of iron, and they were afterward headed by hand. this building, which has the distinction of being the first i in this busy manufacturing town used exclusively for manufacturing purposes was moved to the Barnard farm, where it was used as a carpenter's shop until burned in 1880

Levi Nichols died in Springfield in 1809.  He was married in January, 1760 to Elizabeth Sawyer, daughter of Nathaniel Sawyer who served as a Lieutenant in the revolutionary war and died in Springfield 1805.  The children of his union were: 1. Mary, born May 4, 1761; 2. Elizabeth, born May 28, 1763; 3. Eunice, born November 25, 1765; 4. Levi, born October 30, 1767, amrroed Mehitable Barnard; removed to Jerrico in 1797, later residing in Springfield and Burlington, Vermont, and Essex and Plattsburgh, New York; 5. Luke, born October 31, 1769; 6. Sally, born July 17, 1771; 7. Nancy, born December 9, 1773; 8. Lucy, born Movember 15, 1775; 9. Nathaniel, born November 15, 1778; 10. Theodosia, born October 16, 1780; 11. John; and 12. Thomas, born March 13, 1785.

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