Fifth Generation

112. Adam S. (Wee) Nichols^3,28. Birth: about 1869. Parents: Elijah Wilson Cawood Nichols and Penelope P. Atchley. Birth of Child: about 1890, Augusta Nichols, age of father: 21. Birth of Child: about 1892, Hollace Nichols, age of father: 23. The following is from The Nichols Book by Wyatt Nichols.

Adam S. Nichols, youngest son of Elijah Nichols and younger brother of Elijah Caywood Nichols, was born in 1869.
Much could be written about Adam S. Nichols (known to everyone as Wee) and it would take a complete book to write of all the fine things that he has done in his lifetime. I might begin by saying, he is the only living grandchild of John J. and Margaret Nichols. He will be 91 years of age sometime this year. In the almost four generations of his lifetime, he is no doubt the best loved Nichols of us all. He not only is loved and respected by our Nichols families, but by all of his fellow men that were fortunate enough to know him. He attended school at Morry Academy (this school later became Morry High School) and is located at Dandridge, Tennessee where he grew up. This school ran ten months out of the year and many of his schoolmates reached very great heights in the educational field. One of his classmates was James Hoskins whose education is well known to the great educators of the United States, especially after he became president of the University of Tennessee. He and Adam S. Nichols would get together quite often and reminisce about their boyhood days in Dandridge, selling papers to earn a few nickels for spending money. You will find enclosed in this book a photostatic copy of the fine friendship that existed between Jim Hoskins and Wee Nichols from boyhood on up until the death of Jim Hoskins. This and many other similar things will convey to you the type of man he is.
He owned and operated a large store in Dandridge for a good many years and later became the postmaster at Dandridge. It was while he was postmaster that he endeared himself very much to our own family. We were always very fond of him, but during World War I, my brother Ralph had been reported killed in battle by the Federal Government. They had sent insurance papers for my mother to fill out. Just about the time she was ready to return them, a letter came to Dandridge and postmaster Adam S. Nichols had seen it and recognized Ralph's handwriting. Knowing that my mother would not get it until late the next afternoon, as we lived on a rural route, he called mother that evening and told her that there was a letter there for her and he knew it was Ralph's writing. We have always been very grateful to him for this.
He married a young lady from Dandridge by the name of Fanny Hendrick, two children were born to them, their names are Augusta and Hollace.
He moved to Knoxville quite a few years ago and was in the wholesale cigar business for awhile. He resides at 2414 Magnolia Ave., Knoxville, Tenn., with his son and daughter. I might add that the only difference of opinion that he and I ever had, he is a staunch Democrat and I am a staunch Republican.
Dr. Hoskins' father, the late W. P. Hoskins. a county court clerk and leader in Jefferson County, was a member of Maury Academy board of Trustees. The school had both Peabody and Maury endowment funds. "Back then there were no grade schools. You might be in the first grade in some studies and the fourth in others", Mr. Nichols said. Then Jim took up the tale. "For two weeks they had to whip me to make me go", he chuckled. Mother took me the first day. Then an old Negro took me and I fought him every foot of the way. I hated school. Then my father said, ‘just let him alone -- if he wants to be an ignoramus, let him. But he's got to work. We'll turn off some hands and let him work.'" He stayed home three days. Years later his mother told him, "We thought you'd never go to school and now we can't get you to quit."
SEEMS THAT, in those early days, Wee wrote a good hand and Jim didn't, so Mr. Hoskins sent Jim to a writing school. It was there he had "the worst fight of his life", and formed a hatred of injustice that has remained throughout his life.
"Jim Cline stuck a de-headed pin in the principal's chair -- we called him Old Sutt" he said. "Old Sutt sat down but he didn't jump up the way we expected. He just sat there and said, ‘Who did that?' I laughed. Then he whipped me. We had the most terrible fight you ever saw, up one aisle and down the next. I was afraid to go home because my father had always said that if I got a whipping at school I'd get a bigger one at home.
"One of the Holtsinger boys went home with me. We told my father about the whipping. He just said, "I'll tell you now, if you take anything unjustly and don't defend yourself, you'll get a whipping here".That was the last of my penmanship teaching."
But Jim and Wee agree on the excellence of the teaching of W. R. Manard, principal of the Dandridge school, and of George W. Fox. They also agree that what they learned in those days really stayed with them. They can quote reams from McGuffey's Readers and the old Blueback Spellers.
Wee liked the fact that every story in the old readers had a moral and Jim liked the fact that "elocution" was taught along with reading.
"We weren't allowed to bring books other than our texts to school, so we used to slip them in", Dr. Hoskins said. "I read a lot of books that way."
"On my fourteenth birthday my mother invited the principal to dinner", he recalled. "He told me what an important age that was and said that everything I did was going into my character. Right then I was reading the life of Jesse James that I had smuggled into the school.
"The thing that impressed me was that those James boys had character; they went into lawlessness because of an injustice. An injustice, if allowed to go uncorrected, leads to lawlessness. I remember I enjoyed meeting Frank James after his pardon."
WHEN YOUNG Jim Hoskins began teaching he changed the rules: boys were encouraged to bring all the books they wanted to school.
Wee Nichols was also the victim of an unjust whipping in those days, and like Jim Hoskins, never forgot it. He vowed that when he grew up he'd fight "that old principal".
He was 13 then; saw the "old principal" years later, and sold him and his four sons suits of clothes.
"I felt I couldn't knock a trade like that in the head. Besides, he apologized for that old injustice", he said.
Wee mentioned politics only when he referred to the time he was postmaster in Dandridge.
"It was July 1, 1913, and I was one of the first postmasters appointed in Tennessee by Woodrow Wilson", he said. "When I asked about the appointment I had to talk to Sen. John K. Shields.
"He asked me whom I had voted for in the late judge's race, where he was a candidate. I had to tell him I voted against him. He looked sort of hard at me, and I said ‘Well, that's in the past and this is in the future'. I got the appointment."

Adam S. (Wee) Nichols and Fanny Hendricks. Marriage: about 1889, Adam S. (Wee) Nichols, to Fanny Hendricks.

Fanny Hendricks^3,28. Birth: about 1871. Birth of Child: about 1890, Augusta Nichols, age of mother: 19. Birth of Child: about 1892, Hollace Nichols, age of mother: 21.

Adam S. (Wee) Nichols-6726 and Fanny Hendricks-6727 had the following children: