NICHOLSON, ROBERT SR (1808-1898)

NICHOLSON, ROBERT SR, tanner and currier; b. Dumfriesshire, Scotland, 31 Oct 1808; m. Mary Ann Osburn, a native of Cumberland, England; d. Chatham, 20 Jan 1898.

Robert Nicholson Sr, together with his wife and eldest child, John R. Nicholson, who was born in Silloth, Cumberland, England, in 1831, came to Halifax about 1833. Two years later they moved to the Miramichi, and after spending a year or more in Newcastle settled permanently in Chatham, where Nicholson conducted a tannery. He was in partnership with George Johnston until 1841 and then was on his own. In 1871 his tannery was one of the most highly-appraised businesses in Chatham.

Nicholson was an elder of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church from 1846 to 1870. He and his wife, Mary Ann Osburn, died within a few months of one another in 1898, both aged eighty-nine. They had twelve children, seven of whom lived to maturity. Their eldest son, John R. Nicholson, the father of Dr Robert Nicholson, was an accountant with D. & J. Ritchie & Co. Their second son, James Nicholson, was a doctor who practiced in Bathurst for several years and was appointed physician at the lazaretto at Tracadie in 1862. Three years later he died of tuberculosis, at age thirty. A somewhat younger son, Osburn Nicholson, was also employed by Ritchie's as an accountant and was their general manager for a period prior to his retirement in 1922. Their daughters included Mary Ann Nicholson, the first wife of Henry W. Wyse, and Sarah Nicholson, the second wife of George Brown.