Benjamin Jackson “BJ” Nichols (1815-1886)

Benjamin Jackson “BJ” Nichols

Birth

26 May 1815

Dry Ridge, Grant County, Kentucky, USA

Death

25 Oct 1886 (aged 71)

Elmore County, Idaho, USA

Burial

Nichols Gravesites

Pine, Elmore County, Idaho, USA Add to Map

Plot

The grave site is in a grove of pines, 0.2 mile off the paved highway on a dirt road. The east turnoff from the Pine – Featherville Rd is 2.5 miles north of Pine and 1.0 miles south of the Dog Creek Campground, at 43.516841 deg. N, 115.309947 deg. W.

Memorial ID

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Benjamin was born and raised in Pendleton (now Grant) county, Ky., on a farm which was just west of the town of Dry Ridge. He was one of 12 children born to Simon and Margaret (Mitts) Nichols. Benjamin married Elizabeth Jane Harrison and they had four children: Elizabeth Harrison Nichols Pettit, Rosabelle Nichols Simpson, Simon Newton Nichols, and Jennie/Jane Nichols Pusey. Elizabeth Jane died in July of 1848, about a month after Jennie was born. In the 1850's, he moved with his family to Scotland Co., Mo., next to Clark Co. where some of his brothers were living with their families. In 1861, Benjamin married Nancy Ann Walker McClellan Montgomery, who had been widowed for the second time. They had one child, Lula.

In 1863 and 1864, the gold rush had come to Idaho. Sometime in 1864, Benjamin and his son Newt went to Rocky Bar, Idaho, from Scotland Co., and he left his daughters and second wife behind. He started a new life as a miner.
Within a few years he and E.P. Rice purchased the South Boise Wagon Road, the only road that provided access to the Rocky Bar mining country from the Rattlesnake station, which is just north of current day Mt. Home. They had a 20 year franchise to own, operate, and maintain the toll road. Rice died a few years later, and Benjamin purchsed Rice's interest in the tollroad. But he soon claimed only the road from Pine to Rocky Bar, with his tollgate about 2 1/2 miles north of Pine. He had a small, two story cabin close to the tollgate on land that he farmed. This area later became the McGuire subdivison when it was sold after 1930 by Newt's widow, Sadie.

Gravesite Details

There is a pile of rocks over his grave, and a wooden rail fence around the gravesites of Benjamin and his son, Newt. The grave markers are made of wood planks and have a coat of white paint on them, which is getting weathered; the letters are meta