Biography of George Fox Nicklin

Uptime Biography

 

Backup Biography

My father, William Nicklin was a wool merchant from the Midlands. Objecting to the violence that persons were subjected to in the Revolutionary War, he'd left the country for Holland, which he found peaceable. There he met Maria Theresa Windishgrätz, a Prussian Quaker, my mother. They married in 1780 at the Meetinghouse in The Hague. They returned to England after the conclusion of hostilities in 1783.

My brother was born on 4 November 1782, and named Abel. I followed on 28 March, 1785. Last was my sister, Rebecca, on October 6, 1789. We were brought up as proper Quakers. Each of learned one language of our choosing. High mathematical skill was also required of them, giving both boys skill up to trigonometrics. They also spent considerable time on engineering, politics, and, at Maria's insistence, combat. Rebecca out shined both of us in Second Day School, getting high marks in Morals and the Spirit.

In 1795, we returned to Holland, and father established a minor shipping company. Life was going well for the family, even as the revolution progressed in France and Louis XVI and his family were murdered. With all the royalists pouring into Holland, father did a booming business, importing all sorts of goods on demand.

Good things never last. After the Hapsburg Netherlands became occupied by France on 18 October, 1797, the situation steadily deteriorated. By 1801, the French came roaring into Holland. Though Napoleon tried to keep them on a leash, the armies looted, raped, and burnt indiscriminately. Father was away conducting business in Portugal for a shipment of copra and sugarcane when the French Grand Armée rolled in. Abel was head of the family, and fearing for the younger children's lives, sent them away. Rebecca left for her grandparents in British Hanover.

Abel arranged for the rest of the family to go to London on a British Packet, the Pride of Lahore. Fearing her husband would come home to an empty house, Mother refused to go, and so she kept herself and Abel in the French held Netherlands, constantly protesting and hampering their conquests and violations of decency. I did leave on the British packet, and searched out Vegard Valberg, a distant business associate of my Father in London. I'd raced towards Amsterdam on horseback, the French army nipping at his heels.

As we pulled out of the harbor, the French lit fire to the city, and were launching an attack on the docks, with a handful of British Royal Marines holding them back.

London was cold and the weather was horrid smothering any hope of breath. The entire city reeked of refuse and decay. I starved for a few weeks, until the Presbyterian Church took me in. For months they fed and clothed me. Then, through the work of other Dutch Quakers and the Augsburg Confession Church, I found Herr Doktor Valberg after several months.

He took me in. However, Herr Doktor Valberg had no idea what to do with the me. He certainly couldn't take care of it, nor could his wife, though I didn't need it, even though I was yet to reach majority. I had no relatives, as the French Armies were rolling through the Germanies like a steam engine.

Herr Doktor Valberg had friends outside of Europe. Knowing that I could not return home, Valberg taught me some basic skills and sent me to the United States, to seek out a new life.

In 1808, word reached me that my parents and siblings were dead, killed by the French army; he received a minor inheritance of 5,000 pounds, as well as his father's houses in Leeds and Rotterdam, both of which were confiscated by the French government. George felt resentful and cheated. He hated the French. Herr Valberg decided the boy should be given some space and time, and so, George was sent to scout out Herr Valberg's new holdings in the Louisiana Territory, in the San Juan Mountains in the fall of 1808.

After forty months in the wilderness, feeling somewhat less wounded, I is returned to the United States with another expedition sent by Herr Valberg, headed by Thomas Jefferson Adams, from Virginia.

Biography since the arrival