October 2006 – Edition 18

If you look back over previous editions of the
Newsletter you will see that our writers have included a
mix of items about our forbears in England, Australia
and the United States.

Hi Cousin Donald.

I have been sending you draft articles on all aspects of the
Jerrems family for some time. Looking back through my unused
drafts I see that I have a lot more left on the US, so I suggest
that we run some of them.

Enclosed is a series of items about the family’s early days in
the US, starting with Alexander Nicholl, whose claim to fame
is that his daughter Mary married William George Jerrems, the
forbear of almost all of our cousins (including you) in the US.
He was your great great grandfather. But Alexander Nicholl’s
other claim to fame is that he founded a tailoring empire
which William George inherited and passed on to his sons, one of
whom was your grandfather Donald Edwin Jerrems. You will see
that marrying Mary Nicholl certainly turned out to be a good
career choice for William George!

Here is a story about Alexander Nicholl.

In the frontier days of Phoenix, Arizona, the news that “Big
Alex has come to town” could have caused quite a stir. Perhaps
Big Alex is a gunslinger, people may have thought. But later in
Phoenix in the more sedate and salubrious 1890s the news would
scarcely have caused a ripple. Law abiding citizens buying a
newspaper on a pleasant spring morning of May 21 1892 would have
been greeted with the following news:

Alexander Nicoll, who has large tailoring establishments in
all the principal cities of the United States and is known as
Nicoll the Tailor, arrived in Phoenix by yesterday’s train. Mr.
Nicoll has numerous mining properties in this country.

So who was Alexander Nicholl?

When there is such a time lapse between the dates of events and
the time of writing one has to resort to a certain amount of
guesswork and literary licence based on the fairly scant amount
of information available.

Our US Jerrems readers should recognise him as (variably,
according to the reader’s generation) their great great
grandfather or great great great grandfather.

Alexander was born in Scotland, probably between 1815 and 1820,
and he married Elizabeth. According to a family tree drawn up by
Sydney (Chick’s late mother) as a schoolgirl they had 10
children, including Mary. Looking further down the track,
in due course Mary married William George Jerrems, who was born
in England in 1843 and migrated with his family to Australia in
1859. William George and Mary had 4 children in Australia,
William George ll (born in 1867), Arthur Wallace, Alexander
Nicholl and Ellen/Hellen. They then had two daughters (Mae and
Annie Letitia) in England in 1879 and 1882, and migrated to
Chicago in about 1883 where they had Cousin Donald’s grandfather
(Donald Edwin) in 1885.

In addition to fathering 10 children (time-consuming in itself)
Alexander Nicholl obviously devoted a lot of time and effort to
his tailoring and mining interests. He was clearly a proud Scot
because the stores carried a range of Scottish fabrics and
kilts. He was also very energetic, demonstrated by the fact that
when he visited Phoenix in 1892 he was in his early to mid 70s,
quite an age in those days.

One advertisement (pictured, we think it is him) for a “Nicoll
the Tailor” store has a photograph of Alexander. It depicts him
as having a robust build and a long bushy beard which had not
been interviewed by a barber for a considerable time. Typically
he is wearing a kilt and other Scottish clothes.

The numerous tailoring stores (over 26) were later taken over by
William George Jerrems and his sons, but that is another story
in itself which is set out later.

The name Alexander Nicholl is a popular Scottish name, so it is
difficult from the large number of entries in the records
available to establish accurately when he came to the US, what
his movements were in the US, and when he died. My best guess,
from shipping and migration records, is that he settled in the
US in 1866. Because he had a large family (4 sons and 6
daughters) it is possible that some of the children settled in
the US also, and the sons took on a role as regards his business
interests. But I have not found any specific record of this.

So what can I tell you about Alexander’s stores and the later
Jerrems stores?

Our readers saw Ol Ray’s second appearance in the September
issue. He is the Jerrems ghost of Manley Point near Sydney
and he crashed Nicholl Kidman’s wedding and reception in June.
He will probably be around for another 200 years, so in response
to inquiries we are reprinting his story.

Hello Fellow Jerrems of the Non-Ghost variety,

I am the black sheep of the family. I didn’t even make the
modern Ray’s family genealogy tree. Maybe it was because I was
sort of disowned and abandoned by the Jerrems family back in the
early 1800’s.

Here is my story:

When I was celebrating my 18th birthday, I binged on some great
beer at a local pub in Gainsborough, England. On the way home, I
staggered across a pasture and decided to try tipping a cow.
Well, I got caught and was thrown into the local jail. The local
judge deemed me a miscreant and sent me to Parkhurst Prison, the
place for convict boys.

Later I had a choice to stay in jail for six months or take a
boat trip. I accepted the latter. As it turned out, other
convicts and I were bound for Western Australia to began life as
rehabilitated in England and arrived destined for
apprenticeships with local settlers. Our convict past is often
forgotten.

Well, my family forgot me too, which is why I didn’t make my
great nephew’s tree.

On the boat trip, I met this swabbi; her name is Di. We are
still together. Any resemblance to modern Jerrems is probably
not coincidental.

Hey, have you ever tried tipping a kangaroo? I will tell you
that story in a future edition.

Old Rascal Ray

We will also have a Jerrems Family Quiz. So start
studying the past issues because you will be graded!