By: Joe A. Sharp 

Flayl Nichols, Revolutionary soldier, settled in Sevier County,Tennessee, about 1790. He married Nancy Hatcher in Bedford County,Virginia, January 7, 1780. They sold their Bedford County lands in 1787 and 1783, and records of Franklin Gounty, Virginia, show Flayl serving as juror and making depositions there during these same years.No details of his Revolutionary service are known, but his misspelled name, "Flail Nicholes," was recorded on the roll of Captain Adam
Element's Bedford County militia company. also, it was said that he served in the regiment of Colonel William Campbell at King's Mountain,and Captain Clement's company assisted General Nathaniel Greene inNorth Carolina in 1731.

Flayl.'s father was John Nichols whose will. was ?)robated in Bedford County in 1803, the only bequest to Flayl vas the "big family Bible 11 but since he vas the first heir named it i s believed that he was the oldest child and may have received his share before his father's death. It is not known what happended to this old Nichols Bible. Flayl's brothers and sisters, as named in their father's will, were: John, Archibald Elisha, Jesse, Mary Cundiff Katherine Pollard and Jane Hancock. Bequests were also mace to "my beloved Wife Martha Nichols *" but her Maiden name was not, revealed? unless she rids a second wife she ?was the mother of Flayl and the other children named above.

Bedford County .records shoe: the following marriages of the above Nichols children: Archibald was married twice? (1) Judith Hatcher, daughter of Richard Hatcher(2) Sarah Wollington (1799); Elisha Nichols married Rosey blinker (1782); Jane Nichols married Edward Hancock (1783 ); Jesse Nichols married Sally Fields (1800) . It. is believed that Katherine Nichols' husband was John Pollard but the given name of nary Nichols Cundiff's husband i s unknown. Neither is anything definitely known of Flayl's brother John except the bequest in the above John Nichol? will of a "small shot. gun... unto any grandson John Nichols, son of my Son John Nichols." This grandson is believed to nave been John J. Nichols, who with his Aife, Margaret ( Scantlen) Nichols migrated from Bedford County to Sevier County and settled near Sevierville about 1819. Descendants. of Flayl always claimed kinship with descendants of John J. Nichols.

There is absolute proof that John Nichols, father of Flayl, was also a soldier of the Revolution.

Flayl's Sevier County home was located on the West Fork of Little Pigeon River four miles south of Sevierville, near the mouth of Walden's Greek, where Colonel Samuel year established Wear's Fort not long. after 1763. Tradition has it that Flayl and family first resided in this fort after their arrival from V Virginia d during the early 1790's, when the Cherokee Indians Aere making their last attacks on the Tennessee frontier. It is likely that  Flayl participated in Colonel Wear's Tal lassie espedition against the Cherokee in 1793.

In 1803 Flayl received a Tennessee grant for his 'occupant'' claim of 331 acres, which included two horse shoe bends of Little Pigeon and the surrounding g hills; the river today makes the sane bends as in 1807 when the Nichols grant. was surveyed as  shown by the surveyor's plat