DAVIDSON COUNTY, TN - OBITUARIES - Dr. William Lytle Nichol
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         Archives by: Margaret Nolen Nichol	MNNICHOL@aol.com
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			Dr. W. L. Nichol Dead
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After Several Years Of Suffering, Distinguished Physician Passes Away
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		     Born And Reared In This City
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Was Surgeon in the United States Navy and in the Confederate Army-----
Sketch Of Life
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Dr. W. L. Nichol died yesterday morning at his residence on North High street, 
and thus ended the career of one of the most brilliant physicians that ever 
resided in this community.  His passing away while altogether not unexpected, 
came with such suddenness as to be a great shock to his immediate family and 
friends.  There was no disease or acute sickness, nothing that remedial 
agencies could alleviate, and his taking off was due to the wearing away of a 
vigorous constitution.  For two years he had been in failing health, and since 
1898 had retired from the practice of his profession, because, as he said to a 
friend, he was unable to meet the demands of an active profession life. 
Hundreds of his friends to whom his daily walks about the central portion of 
the city were a welcome sight had missed him for several months past, and 
during all this time he had been keeping close to his home, patiently waiting 
for the summons to come higher, and bearing his decline with that fortitude 
that had characterized his whole life.  He never became bed ridden, and even 
on the day before his death he was walking about his room.
     On Saturday the members of his family noted that he was more feeble than 
usual, and when he retired at night it was observed that he was quite 
restless, calling his wife repeatedly and asking for a drink of water at short 
intervals.  At 2:30 o’clock he became sick at his stomach and began to vomit.  
Mrs. Nichol sent for the family physician, Dr. McGannon, and on his arrival 
and examining the patient he announced that death had set in.  Dr. Nichol 
breathed his last at 6:30 o’clock yesterday morning, surrounded by his wife, 
his daughter, Miss Bessie Nichol and his sister, Mrs. Jane Brown.  His  
brothers, Harry and Edgar Nichol, of this city, arrived a few minutes after 
the end came.  The other members of his immediate family were absent from the 
city, and they were summoned by wire, and will get here this morning.  J. D. 
B. DeBow and his wife came in from Williamson County yesterday morning  and 
Maj. and Mrs. John W. Thomas and W. L. Nichol, Jr., of Chicago, will arrive 
today.  Another son, H. C. Nichol of Montana was also notified, but he will 
probably not get here.
     Sketch of Dr. Nichol
     Dr. Nichol was born in this city Oct. 8, 1828.  He was the son of Wm. and 
Julia Lytle Nichol.  On the paternal side he was of Irish descent.  His 
grandfather, Josiah Nichol, emigrated from Ireland and settled at King’s Salt 
Works in Virginia.  From there he removed to Knoxville, Tenn., and 
subsequently to this city where he died of cholera in 1832.  In his day he was 
a merchant of considerable repute.  Dr. Nichol’s maternal grandfather, Wm. 
Lytle, was a soldier in the Revolutionary war, and resided in Murfreesboro.  
     Dr. Nichol was educated at the University of Nashville, where he 
graduated in 1845.  He began the study of medicine the same year under Dr. 
Thomas R. Jennings.  In 1846 he went to Philadelphia and entered, as a private 
student, the office of Dr. William W. Gerhard.  Subsequently he matriculated 
as a student at the University of Pennsylvania and was graduated in 1849.  The 
same year he was elected as assistant resident physician in Blockley Hospital, 
where he remained one year.  In 1852 he entered the United States Navy, and 
was ordered to join the North Pacific exploring expedition, serving as  
assistant surgeon on the ship Vincennes, the flagship of the squadron.  During 
this cruise he visited Cape Town, Sydney and China, and then went to Japan 
shortly after the ports of that country were opened by Commodore Perry.  From 
Japan he went to the Arctic Ocean and returning to San Francisco in October, 
1856, he resigned his commission in the navy.
     That year he came back to Nashville and took up the practice of medicine.  
Upon the breaking out of the war he enlisted in the Confederate army and went 
out with the First Tennessee Regiment as surgeon.  He was afterwards promoted 
to the position of Surgeon-in-Chief of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston’s army, and 
later served with Gen. Forrest around Atlanta.  At the cessation of 
hostilities he returned to Nashville and resumed his practice.  In 1868 he was 
elected professor of diseases of the chest in the medical college of the 
University of Nashville, and remained in connection with that institution 
until December, 1896, when he resigned after having served as Dean of the 
college for half a session.  He filled the chairs of obstetrics, diseases of 
women and practice of medicine, and from 1875 to 1895, he filled the same 
chairs in the medical college a Vanderbildt University.
Fine Diagnostician
   Dr. Nichol was read as one of the best diagnosticians in the whole country, 
and as a practitioner of medicine he established and held until retirement the 
reputation of being one of the princes of his profession.  He was successful 
in a marked degree , both as a physician and surgeon, and as a teacher he was 
so well liked by his students and his associates in the faculties with which 
he was connected that there was general regret when he finally retired from 
his chair.  He was for many years identified with societies for the
advancement of medical science, being a member of the Nashville Academy of 
Medicine, and of the Tennessee Medical Society.  he was an untiring student 
and possessed an indomitable will.  Many a time he was known to study all 
night preparing his lectures and throughout his entire life he was a student 
of men and books.  His scholarship was thorough, not only in the science to 
which he devoted his life, but also to all of those sciences that make a 
cultured, well rounded man.  In conversation he was brilliant, always
having something to say that had been distilled in the laboratory of thought.  
There was no subject in the intercourse of cultured gentlemen that he could 
not discourse on entertainingly, and it was a rare treat to his friends to get 
him engaged on some subject to which he had devoted much thought and study.  
In his professional life he belonged to the old school of gentlemen, that 
remarkable class which has made the South famous in song and story.  He was 
knightly and courtly, chivalrous in his attentions to men and women, and 
kindhearted in his treatment of the lowly ones.  He was a close adherent in 
the etiquette of his profession, and in all of his lectures to his classes he 
dwelt with peculiar emphasis on the ethics that should govern physicians.
     Dr. Nichol was a generous man, sympathetic and charitable.  He was not 
only much loved by those whose family physician he was, but the poor blessed 
his name.  His heart pulsed with kindness and he believed in the doctrine of 
the universal brotherhood of mankind.  Late in life, about five years ago, his 
mind was directed to an examination of his spiritual welfare and the 
hereafter, and after a thorough searching he accepted the Christian religion 
and united himself with the First Presbyterian Church, leading to the hour of 
his death the life of a consistent Christian.
     Dr. Nichol  was thrice married.  The first time in 1858 to Miss Henrietta 
Cockrill, who died in 1859, leaving one child, H. C. Nichol, who now resides 
in Montana.  His second wife was Miss Ella Fackler, of Huntsville, Ala., whom 
he married in 1864.  She died in 1868, leaving one child, Miss Bessie Nichol.  
His last marriage was to Mrs. J. D. B. DeBow, who was Miss Martha E. Johns. 
She and her son, W. L. Nichol, Jr., of Chicago, survive him.
     The funeral services will be held at 5 o’clock this afternoon at the 
family residence, Dr. W. M. Anderson, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, 
officiating.  The honorary pall-bearers will be the members of the faculty of 
the medical college of the University of Nashville.
     The internment will be private and the remains will be laid away at Mt. 
Olivet Cemetery.

Submitted by:  Margaret Nolen Nichol
(Dr. William Lytle Nichol died June 23, 1901.  The clipping of his obituary is 
from a collection of newspaper clipping in my files)