Samuel Edgar Nicholson was born in Elizabethtown, Indiana, in 1862. He attended Earlham College and graduated in 1885. He worked as a teacher first after graduation, and later served as a member of the Indiana state legislature. He was involved in temperance work for many years and helped found the National Anti-Saloon League. He was also the editor of the American Friend between 1913-1917. He led a Quaker relief mission to Russia in 1924, with his wife Rhoda Elma Nicholson (born 1859, in Arba, Indiana). They had married in 1889, and they had three children: Vincent, Caroline, and Samuel Francis. They lived mostly in Indiana, before later retiring to Pennsylvania. He died in 1934, and she died in 1940. They are both buried at Middletown Friends Meeting in Pennsylvania. Their son Vincent Dewitt Nicholson was born in Azalia, Indiana, in 1890. He graduated from Earlham in 1910, and later completed a Bachelor of Laws at Harvard University. He was a conscientious objector during World War I, and did relief work in Europe after the war. He helped found the American Friends Service Committee and served as its first executive director in 1917; in the 1920s, he returned to serve as peace secretary. He later worked in the Rural Electrification Administration under President Roosevelt. He married Rebecca Carter in 1920, and they had four children: Carolyn, John, Francis, and Christopher. He died in 1945 and is buried at Middletown Friends Meeting. Their daughter Caroline Lucile Nicholson was born in New London, Indiana, in 1891. She graduated from Earlham in 1912, and taught school in Indiana from 1913-1916. She then moved to Pennsylvania to teach at Westtown School, where she remained until 1939, except for a leave from 1919-1921 when she did relief work in Germany in the aftermath of World War I. Returning to Westtown, she taught French, German, Bible, and History, and served as assistant principal from 1926-1939. She married Edward Jacob in 1939. In her later years she was active in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and the Westtown School General Committee, and she wrote several books of Quaker history. She died in 1991 and is buried at Middletown Friends Meeting. Their younger son Samuel Francis Nicholson was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1900. He graduated from Westtown School in 1917. Like his siblings, he did relief work in post-WWI Europe, before attending Earlham. He graduated in 1921. He completed his MBA at Harvard Business School, and was later hired by the Provident Trust Company in Philadelphia, where he worked for 42 years. He was active in Quaker circles, including the Westtown School General Committee from 1967-1994. He married Evelyn Hope Haworth in 1925, and they had three children: James, Frances, and Joan. He died in 2005 and is buried at Middletown Friends Meeting.

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