The following is a summary of the “story” based on known and provable facts about Samuel Nichols, son of Samuel Nichols and Sarah Soule. Sources and references for these facts are listed in the Proof and Timeline page that acts as the Attachment Cover Sheet for Generation 6 of the Mayflower application.
Compiled by Nancy Dunn Watson
- Samuel Nichols was married to Sarah Soule who is a proven Mayflower descendant.
- Samuel Nichols and Sarah Soule had a son, Samuel Nichols, baptized in Lebanon, CT 13 Feb 1774.
- Sarah Soule and Samuel Nichols moved to Lempster, NH where their daughter, Susannah Nichols was born in 1775 and five other children were also born in Lempster.
- Their son, Samuel Nichols, is found in 1790 living in a separate household near Lempster with an unnamed wife.
- There is a marriage between Samuel Nichols and Maria (aka “Polly”) Uzero (Hussereau). However, Maria Uzero was 15 years old when she married Samuel Nichols in Canada in 1810. She would not have even been born in 1790 when Samuel was married and living near Lempster.
- One Samuel Nichols is found in Barton, VT between 1792 to at least 1800 where four children were born, including Emely Sophia Nichols in December 1792. Barton, VT is about 120 miles north of Lempster, NH in what was then undeveloped frontier country and new land was open for settlement.
- Sarah Soule died in Lempster, NH 9 Mar 1796, leaving her husband, Samuel Nichols, a widower. He soon married Susannah Davis of Washington, NH May 19 1796.
- Sarah Soule’s and Samuel Nichols’ daughter, Susannah Nichols, married Levi Silver 1 June 1800 in Lempster, NH.
- Sarah’s husband, Samuel Nichols, died in Washington, Sullivan, NH about 1801 and left an estate (probated in 1802/3) indicating Samuel Nichols was one of the heirs.
- The heir, Samuel Nichols, was not in town for the probate in 1802/3 and was represented by Jonathan Booth, a local attorney.
- Another heir, Susannah Nichols Silver, was represented by her husband, Levi Silver, who was apparently not in town either and was represented by the same Jonathan Booth who represented the heir Samuel Nichols. The choice of the same attorney by both Samuel Nichols and his brother-in-law, Levi Silver, indicates a possible location/proximity relationship.
- The heir Susannah Nichols Silver and her husband Levi Silver are found living in northern Vermont where she gave birth to a child, Eliza Silver, in Sutton, VT (a contiguous city to Barton, VT) on 13 July 1803.
- The heir Olive Nichols Dinsmore/Densmore was in Washington, NH (where her father and new step mother lived) between 1801 and 1803 and gave birth to a son, Samuel Densmore 19 Aug 1801 in Washington and to a second son, William Densmore, 23 Apr 1803, also in Washington. Her husband, William Densmore, represented her and signed administration papers for her father’s estate.
- By 1805 Olive and William Densmore had moved to Sutton, VT where a daughter, Hannah Densmore, was born 16 Aug 1805.
- Most of the heirs of Samuel Nichols moved to the new lands in the frontiers of northern Vermont (Sutton and Barton) between 1792 and 1803 with the exception of William Nichols and Sarah Nichols.
- The fate of the heir, William Nichols, the oldest son of Samuel Nichols and Sarah Soule, is uncertain, except that he was alive when his father’s estate was probated in 1803 and signed administration papers. Several suggestions have been proposed for his whereabouts, including that he was the William Nichols living in Beauharnois, Canada after 1810.
- One Samuel Nichols married Marie (“Polly”) Uzero (Hussereau) in 1810 in Canada and is always found living near William Nichols.