Biography of Bertrand Nicolas, Clay Co, AR

***********************************************************
Submitted by:
        Date:
Copyright. All rights reserved
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
***********************************************************

From:
The Goodspeed Biographical and Historical Memoirs of N. E. Ark.
Biographical Information.

Bertrand Nicolas, farmer and stockman of Clay County, Ark., was born in France
in 1844, being the second of a family of eight children born to Bertrand and
Catherine (Johnson) Nicolas, who were also born in France and came to the United
States in 1847, landing at New Orleans, and afterward settling at St. Louis,
Mo., where the father engaged in weaving. In 1858 they moved to the country
about twelve miles from the city, where they lived ten years, and afterward
located about six miles north of Kirkwood, where both parents died. Bertrand
Nicolas, whose name heads this sketch, was reared to a farm life and attended
the schools of St. Louis, receiving a good education. At the age of twenty-eight
years he began working for himself, and was married at the age of thirty-two to
Miss Rebecca Towe, a native of Missouri, by whom he became the father of two
children, and at the birth of the second child Mrs. Nicolas died. George, the
elder, is attending school in St. Louis. Katie died in infancy. In 1884 Mr.
Nicolas married his second wife, whose maiden name was Miss Julia Mercille, a
native of Missouri. After his second marriage he remained in Missouri one year,
and then came to Arkansas in the spring of 1885, settling near Peach Orchard,
and at the end of two years located upon his present farm, where he is now
tilling an excellent tract of fifty acres.