My Genealogy Hound

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 Mercillo, 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.