9 hours ago
A personal journey: Tracing Richmond's roots back to the Nicholl family
RICHMOND, Calif. - Nicholl is a prominent name in Richmond.
There is beautiful Nicholl Park.
Nicholl Nob boasts amazing views of the bay.
And that's not too far from Nicholl Avenue, where Erika Madsen has lived just a block away for 23 years.
It's named after John Nicholl, who was a farmer-turned-East Bay-real estate maven and philanthropist.
In the late 1800s, Nicholl bought most of what is now Point Richmond, betting the railroad would be coming thru to San Francisco.
It paid off.
He taxed the Sante Fe Railroad $80,000 for the right away, and cashed in, putting both Richmond and Nicholl family on the map in the early1900s.
"He was domineering and is considered the father of Richmond," historian James Cheshareck said. "He was also the Duke of Richmond. How much was he worth when he passed? Around $3 million. What is that in today's money? Around $94 million."
That got me curious. Because tucked away in my storage was an 1895 photo of my mother's grandmother, Ruth Ann Nichol Wells of Richmond.
I also have a family portrait of Mary E. Nicholl dating back to the 1800s.
So I took the portrait to the Richmond museum of history to donate it and get confirmation.
Could these two women be a relative of John Nicholl?
Richmond's historian said yes.
"This has to be the mother," Cheshareck said. "I've seen pictures of Mary Emma. People aged quicker back then. She has a resemblance to him. The expression is similar."
That portrait that has hung in my family home for decades is John Nicholl's Irish mother, Mary. So that would make her my great-great-great grandmother, which makes John Nicholl my great-great-grandfather.
Who knew?!
The final piece of the Nicholl puzzle was my great-grandmother, Ruth Anne Nicholl Wells, who was Nicholl's fourth of eight children.
She had five children of her own including my grandfather, R.A. Wells.
And, as fate would have it, we discovered inside the museum a photo of my then 10-year-old grandfather and his siblings circa 1909 – a photo I had never seen before.
John Nicholl died in 1914 at age 92 and is buried in Oakland's Mt. View Cemetery along with many of his children.
