Drownings1938 NICHOLS AND FRONTIER MINNESOTA 267
sellers," as he expressed it, before a "perfect jam." He
also arraigned the community:
The burning of our House of Worship is a loss to us as a church,
but it is a greater loss to the interests of this community. We can
afford our loss if this town can afford the name of having its churchesburned. Let it go out to the world, that the Liquor Interest of
Minneapolis, burn down churches when it takes their whim, & who
suffers the most, the Plymouth people or the town where such an
outrage is perpetrated. Citizens of Minneapolis can you afford such
a name as that ?24
The weeks which were left to Nichols were few. They
were fairly happy ones, however, though he did not feel
quite at home preaching in the Free Will Baptist Church
each Sunday morning, and in the Methodist Church each
Sunday night. He went botanizing and geologizing with Dr.
C. L. Anderson, down on the river bank, and there was
Dr. Bushnell in the Winslow House across the river. His
own people were kind. On April 21, Plymouth Church and
Society called him to be their permanent pastor. Plans
were being made for a new church." A stranger put a ten -
dollar bill in his hand one Sunday to help rebuild. "Think
we shall live yet, if it be God's will," he wrote. But the
diary stops at the end of June with these final words:
Prospect brightens for a new church."
By a curious coincidence Nichols had on January 1
preached a sermon from the text, "This year thou shalt
die." By an even stranger coincidence his last sermon,
preached on July 1, was from the text, "These all died in
faith." On July S, Mr. and Mrs. Nichols and their son
Henry, aged twelve, were drowned in Lake Calhoun.
Sermon of April 8, 1860. Nichols' wife was alarmed for his safety,
and for a time after they had moved into a little house "out by Dea.
Snow's," he carried a revolver. Nichols met Bushnell while he was
residing temporarily in Minnesota for his health.
Nichols gives the following information in his diary for May 8, 1860:
let Cong. Soc. of Minneapolis was organized to night & Bell, Stone,
Tenney, Harrison & Morgan, chosen Trustees. Prospect is good for
building a new church."
268 CHARLES W. NICHOLS SEPT.
They had driven to Minnehaha Falls in the morning for
a picnic with the Cleaveland family of Chanhassen. Mrs.
Nichols and Mrs. Cleaveland were sisters. On their way
home they stopped at Lake Calhoun, and the two oldest
Cleaveland girls and young Henry went bathing at a spot
opposite the Lake of the Isles. About twenty feet out from
shore was an abrupt drop off. The Cleaveland girls were
presently in deep water and could not swim. Young Henry
immediately swam to their rescue, but they clung to him
and carried him under. Accounts of what followed vary,
but apparently the two fathers rushed in. Nichols was a
powerful swimmer, but he was fully dressed, and Cleave-
land, who seems not to have been a swimmer, was presently
dragging his brother -in -law down. Mrs. Nichols, standing
on the edge of deep water, reached the hand of her hus-
band, and was also carried down, calling to her sister to
go back to the children left on shore —the two youngest
Cleaveland girls and my father, who was less than three
years old.
A few hours later hundreds of citizens of Minneapolis
were at the scene, and six bodies were presently recovered
from the lake. The next afternoon at sundown six coffins
were placed in a row on the lawn of the Nichols home,
while over a thousand persons gathered in the neighbor-
hood for the funeral. The little Plymouth choir sang, and
the Reverend Charles Seccombe of St. Anthony, standing
on the steps of the cottage, conducted the service, aided by
the Reverend Charles B. Sheldon of Excelsior, the Rever-
end A. S. Fiske of St. Paul, and the Reverend James A.
McKee of St. Anthony.
The whole community was deeply moved. On the next
Sunday the tragic event was the theme of every sermon in
the two cities at the falls. Bishop Henry B. Whipple of
the Episcopal church preached in St. Anthony from the
28 Mr. George Brackett, a member of Plymouth Church, once told me
that he ran all the way to the scene of the tragedy.
1938 NICHOLS AND FRONTIER MINNESOTA 269
words, "Set thine house in order, for thou shalt die." In
the evening Seccombe preached to the bereft Plymouth con-
gregation, using the same text which Nichols had — used the
Sunday before. The yellowed pages of his manuscript, be-
fore me as I write, contain some passages which I should
like to quote:
Mr. Nichols . . possessed a large & liberal heart, a degree of en-
ergy & fire that required a large room to breathe in, & a free air to
breathe. . . . He possessed a depth & richness of voice ... such as
few public speakers comparatively enjoy, & this united with his im-
passioned eloquence gave him a great power over his audience. As
a theologian, he was not a strict disciple of the schools. He inclined
to union among Christians, & would have favored such an organiza-
tion of the church as would permit all evangelical orders to unite;
yet as it respects the government of a Church he loved the largest
liberty, & could ill brook any ecclesiatical fetters.
Samuel C. Gale of Plymouth Church, a man of scholarly
and discerning judgment, set down in his diary on July 13
the following words:
I never saw a whole community so stricken with sorrow. Mr. Nich-
ols had a very strong hold upon the popular affection and filled a very
large place in the society at large. . . . He thoroughly understood
the people and had great confidence in the native ability and good in-
stincts of human beings and always appealed to these qualities.
Above this he possessed a most vigorous body, with great courage, a
most remarkably clear and impressive utterance with the rare power
of magnetizing and thrilling his hearers, this last the unvarying ac-
companyment of great orators. In short Mr. Nichols, if not great,
was a very remarkable man and an orator, not onesided either al-
though radical on most questions of reform. Manliness is the word
above all others which designates the common character of the man.
The tributes of the Minneapolis press were printed in
columns deeply bordered with black, and all agreed that
no man possessed a stronger hold upon the heart of the
community." But I turn back to Stillwater, where this
chapter began, to find the most fitting words with which to
Quoted from the manuscript diary, with the kind permission of
Mr. Edward C. Gale of Minneapolis. A copy of this diary, on film -
slides, is owned by the Minnesota Historical Society.
270 CHARLES W. NICHOLS SEPT.
close. They were penned by A. J. Van Vorhes, Nichols'
personal friend, in his paper, the Stillwater Messenger,
which Nichols had enthusiastically helped to bring into ex-
istence. The editorial, printed on July 10, 1860, begins
with genuine emotion:
Words are a feeble medium through which to convey the emo-
tions of this hour, induced by the saddest event we have ever been
called upon to record. The pen shrinks from the performance of its
office, the heart is stilled into awe. The moistened eye, the measured
tread, the saddened countenances of all with whom we meet, would
reveal to a stranger that a great shadow had passed over and is still
resting upon this community, — leaving its impress upon every heart.
Last Thursday evening, Rev. H. M. Nichols, his wife and son
Henry, bound to our citizens by inseparable cords of social and
christian fellowship . . . were drowned in Lake Calhoun, near
Minneapolis.
The tribute included in the editorial is particularly ap-
propriate for the close of this paper:
As a writer and speaker, and a bold and genuine Reformer, we be-
lieve he had no peer in this State or the North- west.— Active in every
educational, reformatory or other interest calculated to elevate and
improve the social or moral condition of man, he was peculiarlyadaptedtoanewcountrylikethis. He has left his impress upon
the city and State, which will bless and perpetuate his name in the
memory of the people. "He being dead, yet speaketh."
CHARLES W. NICHOLS
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
MINNEAPOLIS