My Genealogy Hound

CLIFTON M. NICHOLS, for thirty-five years editor of the Springfield Daily Republic and its predecessors and successors, has been for that period prominently identified with every movement having for its object the moral and material welfare of the community. Such has been his zeal, activity and courage in behalf of every good cause and in the promotion of the interests and growth of Springfield, that it has justly been said that to few other men is the city more largely indebted for its rapid progress and wide reputation.

As editor of the Springfield Republic, Mr. Nichols used the columns of that paper with the skill of an accomplished writer to spread the fame of Springfield and its great industrial enterprises, with a degree of success which the marked prosperity of the city clearly attests. He rendered special service in the war for the maintenance of the Union and was for five months at the front as a volunteer soldier. Every project which aimed at the advancement of the public interest in any way, if not originated by him, as many such projects have been, was always sure to seek and readily obtain his efficient co-operation.

Clifton M. Nichols was born in Westfield, Chautauqua County, N. Y., June 14, 1830, and was the eldest son of Wiseman Claggett and Fivilla (Cass) Nichols, the father a native of Thetford, Vt., and the mother of Stratford, N. H. Jonathan and Triphetnia (Sackett) Nichols, the grandparents of our subject, were natives of Bolton, Mass., and of Kent, Litchfield County, Conn., respectively. Clifton M., was a resident of Mayville, N. Y., from 1837 to 1840; of Portland, N. Y., from 1840 to 1848, and of Oberlin, Ohio, from 1848 to 1852, in which year he went to Cincinnati and from there to Springfield in April, 1854, where he has since resided.

Though wholly free from sectarian bitterness, Mr. Nichols has throughout his entire life taken an active and leading part in religious movements, in the advocacy of temperance principles and in behalf of popular education. As a Sunday-school worker he is widely known, having been called to the Presidency of the Ohio Sunday-school Union as a result of his untiring labors and recognized usefulness in that field. In June, 1880, he represented the Union and the Congregational Association of Ohio, at the Raikes Centennial World’s Sunday-school Convention, held at London, England. Mr. Nichols went to Europe again with his wife, Mrs. Frances Henrietta (Keith) Nichols, in 1882, and visited various portions of England, Scotland and France.

The Republic newspaper formed alliances and was consolidated with other journals, being known in the year 1884 as the Globe- Republic, again as simply the Republic and since 1888 as the Republic Times, of which paper he was the editor-in-chief until he resigned this position to take the Superintendency of the Board of Trade, in the management of the affairs of which he has exhibited rare skill, energy and unflagging industry.

To a cultivated mind, rare talents, a familiar knowledge and keenly appreciative taste in literature, good ability as a writer, public speaker and lecturer, Mr. Nichols adds such qualities as a worthy citizen, good neighbor and personal friend as have secured for him the warm esteem of the community in which he lives. In addition to his regular newspaper work he is a regular contributor to such journals as the New York Tribune, the Congregationalist, of Boston, the Advance, of Chicago, and the Golden Rule, of Boston, and has also contributed to the Sunday-School Times, of Philadelphia.