Mr. Nichols and his wife are probably James Bruce and Mary Nichols of Fairfax County. Nichols may be the J. B. Nickolls who advertised in the Alexandria newspaper in 1797 as a broker “for the purchase of real and personal Estate, (negroes excepted) and procuring money on loan, &c.” (Columbian Mirror [Alexandria], 8 June 1797). The Nichols family lived on land adjoining Thomson Mason’s Hollin Hall farm (Fairfax Index description begins Edith Moore Sprouse, ed. A Surname and Subject Index of the Minute and Order Books of the County Court, Fairfax County, Virginia, 1749–1800. Fairfax County History Commission. Fairfax, Va., 1976. description ends , 53).