In the Tennessee Archives. His lands joined the lands owned by Stephen Winton, George Green, John Mahan and Alexander Montgomery also original grant holders and early settlers in the same neighborhood. His home was on the bank of the river a few hundred .yards north of Shiloh Cemetery and he operated a mill nearby.

Details in the lives of humble : en are hard to find; so it was with Flayl Nichols, and doubly so in Sevier County, where the early court. records were lost in the court house fire of 1856. Flayl, however, left a few footprints, although obscure and scattered. In 1801 we find him serving as captain of a Sevier County militia company; later, in 1805, the Tennessee legislature made him a commissioner fur the town of Sevier  although he did not live in the town.

Perhaps Flayl's neatest claim to fame was his service as state senator in the Tennessee legislature, 1803-04; he represented Sevier and Blount counties. In the impeachment trial of Judge David Campbell, he joined the minority of James White, Senate Speaker and Knoxville's founder, and Joseph McMinn, future Tennessee governor, and voted fur nudge Campbell's conviction. He introduced bills to "establish fairs in Sevier County," and to empower the Sevier County court to levy a tax to repair the "court house, prison and stocks." He also voted with the majority that defeated a bill to 'prohibit the further importation of slaves into Tennessee." And on November 7, 1803, Flayl joined the overwhelming majority of the Senate that, voted to clear John Sevier, Tenn? great, frontier hero, of fraudulently obtaining North Carolina land warrants for 15,000 acres of Tennessee lands. Finally, on August 1, 1801., he voted against the bill allowing North Carolina to "perfect titles" to lands in Tennessee, and after the passage of this bill he entered his strong protest in the Senate Journal.

Flayl and Nancy had nine children, as follows: Sarah (b. 1780),Martha (b. 1783), Rhoda (b. 1785), John (b. 1787), Jesse (b. 1788),Simon (b. 1795), William (b. 1797), Robert (b. 1800 and Edward (b. ?).Only, one of these remained in Sevier County? this was John who married
Esther V. Black of Blount County, Tennessee, in 1814. It is believedthat she was a daughter of Joseph Black, one of the f ounders of Blount County and Maryville. The daughter Martha .married Irish? born Robert Lawson, early Sevierville shoe maker and saddler, and they migrated to Talladega County, Alabama, soon after the War of 1812, and many of their descendants still live in the latter place today. Sarah married John Matson, War of 1812 soldier; after his death she and her children also settled in Talladega County, where many of her descendants also live
today. The son William married Wlartha Cannon and about 1835 they migratedto Randolph County Missouri  he died there in 1864. Jesse, a soldier in the War of 1812, married Tobitha Coulter (or Cotter) and they migrated to Marshall County, Alabama, where Jesse died in 1841 his widow still lived there in 1872. Nothing: is known of the other sons, but, family tradition that, they, like William, also settled in Missouri.Flayl Nichols died at his home on the West Fork of Little Pigeon, August 17, 1823. The family Bible recorded his death as follows:
"Flayl Nichols departed this life on Little Pigeon River Sevier County Tennessee State with gravel Aug 17, 1823. His grave in Shiloh  marked with the original hand shaped sandstone with the inscription F.N. Dc. 1823,  the carving of the old fashioned canoe-shaped coffin below this inscripotion. In recent years a flat granite head stone showing his Revolutionary wear service was furnished by the War Memoirial Division of the United States Army and it was placed in front of the Old stone The Widow Nancy survived for several years- she died about 1840. No original marker remains at her grave, but the writer with the help of three Alabama descendants placed a granite marker fur Nancy by the side of Flayl's grave.