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Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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NICOL, JAMES (1852-1935)

NICOL, JAMES, shoe store operator; mayor of Chatham, 1905-07 and 1929-31; b. Anstruther, Fife, Scotland, 8 Nov 1852, s/o of Capt. John Nicol and Mary Scott; m. 1877, Isabel Simpson Whittaker, then of Chatham; d. there, 13 Sep 1935.

James Nicol came to the Miramichi at age eighteen and worked for several years as a store clerk for J. B. Snowball & Co. of Chatham, and James Brown of Newcastle. About the time of his marriage in 1877 he acquired a shoe store in Chatham. This had been owned and operated since the mid 1860s by his father-in-law, George Whittaker, who was formerly of Fredericton and Saint John. He was a storekeeper for the next fifty years. He also had investment interests and owned the Prospect Place Hotel at Burnt Church for a time prior to 1906.

In his spare time Nicol studied astronomy, and when he read a paper on that subject to a meeting of the Epworth League in 1894, at which R. B. Bennett presided, it was declared to be one of the most instructive ever presented to a Chatham audience. He was later involved with Dr James McG. Baxter and others in the work of the Miramichi Natural History Association and served as president from 1907 to 1909.

In 1896 Nicol was a member of the first Chatham Town Council. He sat for several terms, and during the years in which the Miramichi Advance was being published he engaged in a tedious exchange with the editor over what he may or may not have said inside and outside the council chamber. His opinions were always well-expressed, but he was thin-skinned and defensive and would go to extraordinary lengths to prove that he was right and the newspaper wrong. The public recognized his good intentions and strengths, however, and elected him mayor of Chatham for two separate two-year terms.

In 1893 Nicol and his wife, Isabel S. Whittaker, were in attendance at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. In 1900 he visited his former home in Scotland and went on a six-week tour of Britain and the continent. He was president of the Highland Society in 1910 and again in 1914. He was predeceased by his wife in 1933 and survived in 1935 by a son and two daughters.

Sources

[b/d] official records [m] Telegraph 23 Nov 1877 / Advance 21 Sep 1893, 1 Mar 1894, 12 Jul 1900, 20 Sep 1900; Advocate 19 Jul 1933; Fraser (C); Hist. Highland Soc.; Leader 20 Sep 1935; MacMillan; World 14 Apr 1906


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