The
Nims family, with its roots in Deerfield, Massachusetts, can now be
found across
nearly all fifty states in the U.S. and several other countries as
well. Informal gatherings of family members have occurred in many
settings over many years. On at least two occasions, associations have
organized to carry out family-related activities. Early in the 1900's,
a group organized in the Keene, New Hampshire area, and began holding
reunions annually, meeting once every year from 1904 to 1938, missing
only the years 1933 and 1937. The record of this first group can
be found in
The Nims Family Association, The Early Years: 1904-1938, published by
NFA in 1991.
NFA members, early 1900s
Nims Family Association Presidents
- Frank L. Nims 1979-1985
- Robert M. Nims 1985-1988
- Godfrey Nims 1988-1989
- Arthur Nims Phillips 1989-1992
- David A. Nims 1992-1996
- William A. Nims 1996-2000
- David A. Nims 2000-2004
- Ronald Graham, 2004-
| Photos of some Nims Family Association Presidents |
Current President Ronald Graham
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Past President David Nims
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Past President Bill Nims
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Past President Frank Nims
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Past President
Arthur Nims
Phillips.
(Art, who served as president from 1989-1992, & vice-president
during 1988, & 1992-1996, passed away on August 4, 2004.)
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 The following
two excerpts are taken from Emma Lewis Coleman’s
book published in 1912 titled A Historic and
Present Day Guide to Old Deerfield. One section of
this fascinating portrait presents stories of the
early homesteads. Here is what she wrote about the
dwelling we know as the Nims House, and its
family, in an anecdote nearly 100 years old.
“On the opposite corner the house built about 1710
is owned by the Misses Miller. This homestead
belonged to the Nims family over two hundred
years, until 1894. Godfrey Nims was one of
Deerfield’s earliest settlers. He was a turbulent
youth, and of his descendants there have been
soldiers in every American war. Perhaps the most
notable and most modest is his
great-great-grandson, Colonel Ormand F. Nims,
whose services in the Civil War were so
distinguished that the original name of the
battery under his command has been ignored, and
its exploits are remembered as those of ‘Nims
Battery.’
Godfrey Nims’s house, just within the stockade,
was burned in 1704, and three little daughters,
Mehitable, Mary and Mercy perished. Two elder
children were killed by the savages and two were
captured. His wife was killed on the march. The
eldest son had been carried off the year before.
The story of his escape with three other young men
is told by one of them, Joseph Petty, in a letter
now in Memorial Hall. It was another son,
Ebenezer, who, after several years of captivity,
married at Lorette, Sarah Hoyt. Her captors were
trying to force her to marry a Frenchman, and she,
to free herself, publicly offered to accept as her
husband any one of her fellow-captives. The two
young people, already lovers perhaps, were married
at once. In 1714, when Ebenezer, his wife and baby
son were about to be sent home, the Indians went
in a body from Lorette to the ship at Quebec to
beg them to stay, or at least to leave the child
behind.
When the baby was grown to manhood, he told Parson
Ashley that he was dissatisfied with his baptism
in the Romish Church, so he was baptized again and
‘admitted to ye fellowship of ye chh’ in
Deerfield…
But most romantic was the life of Abigail, who was
only three years old when she made the long
journey to Canada, ‘when she came not back.’ She
was carried by her Indian master to the Mission of
the Sault au Recolet. There also came Josiah
Rising, a little Connecticut boy, who was visiting
at the house opposite Abigail’s on that February
day. What the nuns of the Congregation did for
Abigail, the Sulpitian priests did for Josiah.
They were baptized and renamed Elizabeth and
Ignace, and in 1715, when Elizabeth was fifteen,
they were married. Six years later, the Mission
having been transferred to the Lake of the Two
Mountains, the priests gave them a large domain on
which their descendants (Raizenne) still live.
From this Canadian home, an evergreen tree has
been brought back to Deerfield by Miss Baker and
planted in front of Memorial Hall, on land which,
being part of her father’s homestead, the child
Abigail’s feet must often have trodden.” ( pp.
50-52)
The second selection from Ms. Coleman’s early
record speaks of the captives being taken from
Deerfield in February of 1704. She writes, “Mr.
Samuel Carter has recently traced the route of the
party, which doubtless followed the trail, running
northeasterly from Leyden into Bernardston,
rounding Bald Mountain. This day they traveled
eight miles and the third day’s journey, of equal
length, took them through Vernon. They probably
made their camp on the bank of the Connecticut,
where afterwards was Fort Dummer. Here they must
have taken to the ice of the Great River, going as
far as
West River, where the Canadians had left their
dogs and sledges. With these to carry their
wounded, their packs and some of the children,
they ‘marched at a great pace’ Stephen Williams
says. ‘They traveled (we thought) as if they
designed to kill us all, for they travelled
thirty-five or forty miles a day. Here they killed
near a dozen women and children.
On the Sabbath day they rested, and Mr. Williams
was permitted to pray, and preach to the captives.
‘The place of Scripture spoken from was Lam. i.
18.’ This was at the mouth of the river called, in
memory of this day, Williams River. On the ninth
day, at the junction of the White and Connecticut,
De Rouville separated them into several parties,
each to take a different route, and the captives
never again all came together. Mr. Williams’s
master joined a party of hunting Indians ‘A day’s
journey from the lake,’ and it was in the seventh
week of his captivity that they ‘again began a
march for Shamblee’ (Chambly). Then they ‘came to
a river where the ice was thawed’ (the Sorel), and
‘made a canoe of elm-bark in one day arrived on a
Saturday (probably April 15th) at Chambly, a few
miles south of Montreal. Most of his Deerfield
friends had arrived---some of them three weeks
earlier.
Sooner or later most of the captives were
redeemed. Eighteen of the thirty whose fate was
unknown, have been traced by Miss Baker in their
Canadian homes. And of those left behind? The snow
had become soft; the New Englanders had no
snow-shoes, and it was impossible for the men who
had come to the help of the afflicted town, to
follow and attempt the rescue of the captives.
More than half the village folk were dead or
captured, and those that were left (twenty-five
men, twenty-five women, and seventy-five children,
mostly under ten) had lost courage and hope; but
the Government decreed that the town must not be
deserted. So the women and children were sent to
safer places and gradually the men rallied. They
had houses for their shelter and soldiers for
their protection---and the fertile fields could be
cultivated. The town meeting was late that year,
and the record is in a new handwriting, for the
clerk, Thomas French, was far away. No reference
is made to the great disaster. (pp. 24-26)
Nims Family Association Historians
- Ellen Mary Nims 1979-1984
- Elizabeth Suddaby 1984-1989
- John Schultz 1989-1992
- Susan Oathout 1992-2003
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