[Nichols] started with his wife and twins by prairie schooner from the Maumee for northern Illinois.

The evidence

• “He gained the power to interest young men from the lakes and the furnace, and also in 1844 gained Miss Lucy Ann Nichols for a wife, and two years later decided to go West. With a prairie schooner and a heavy team and good wishes from neighbors, August 31, 1846, he started with wife and twins, Louisa and Eliza, for northern Illinois. They had hardly crossed the Maumee when the mother and children became quite ill, and little Eliza died and was buried.”

  1908-brown-rock-county/34a-biographical-1.md, Vol. 2, PDF p. 314 / book p. 812

  Brown, William Fiske, editor. Rock County, Wisconsin: A New History of Its Cities, Villages, Towns, Citizens and Varied Interests, from the Earliest Times, Up to Date. Chicago: C. F. Cooper & Co., 1908. 2 vols. archive.org/details/rockcountywiscon01brow, archive.org/details/rockcountywiscon02brow.

  Grade A: Found on a page of one of our sources