Born in 1834, in Donaldsonville, Francis Nicholls attended West Point but turned to the law. He established his own law practice in Napoleonville in the late 1850s before entering the Army of the Confederacy as a Captain during the Civil War. Promoted to Colonel and then to Brigadier General, Nicholls lost an arm and a foot in battle and was captured and held prisoner. Nicholls became Governor in 1876 as reconstruction ended. Elected to the governorship a second time in 1888, Nicholls helped to end the corrupt Louisiana Lottery Company. He was appointed Chief Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court in 1892 and served until 1911, when he retired to Ridgefield Plantation, owned by the family of his wife, Caroline Zilpha Guion. Nicholls died in 1912 and was buried with his wife, his father Thomas Clark, a veteran of the Battles of New Orleans in 1814-1815, and two brothers, Robert Wellman and Edward Fitzgerald, who served in the War with Mexico, 1846-1848.
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