Armistead S. Nickens (ca. 1836-1906)

J-46

Armistead Nickens was born into a long-standing family of free people of color that included at least 12 veterans of the Revolutionary War. In 1867 the local agent of the Freedmen’s Bureau identified him as a strong potential candidate for public office. After attending Virginia’s Republican State Convention in Sept. 1871, Nickens won election to the House of Delegates that year and served two terms, becoming Lancaster County’s first Black elected official. He is credited with establishing one of the first schools for African Americans in the county and with helping to build Calvary Baptist Church in Kilmarnock, where he was a deacon. Nickens owned more than 150 acres of land by 1906.

Department of Historic Resources, 2020

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

U.S. Census, 1900. Virginia Citizen, 4 May 1906. Matthew S. Gottlieb, “Armistead S. Nickens (1836–1906),” Dictionary of Virginia Biography: https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Nickens_Armistead_S_1836-1906 Virginia Elections and State Elected Officials Database Project: http://vavh.electionstats.com/php/bio.php?pid=5535 https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/86252547/armistead-stokalas-nickens Luther Porter Jackson, Negro Office-Holders in Virginia, 1865–1895 (Norfolk: Guide Quality Press, 1945). Luther Porter Jackson, “Virginia Negro Soldiers and Seamen in the American Revolution,” Journal of Negro History, vol. 27, no. 3 (July 1942): 247-287. Dorothy Norris C. Cowling, ed., “Historical Notes on The Life and Achievements of Blacks in Lancaster County and the State of Virginia (1619–1974),” A Study Sponsored by The Lancaster County African American Historical Society (Richmond, Dec. 1991): 86–88, 239–245, 305, 352. Carolyn H. Jett, Lancaster County, Virginia: Where the River Meets the Bay (Lancaster, VA: The Lancaster County History Book Committee in association with The Mary Ball Washington Museum and Library, 2003), 226, 294, 388, 396, 398. Paul Heinegg, Free African Americans of North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina, vol. 2 (Genealogical Publishing Co., 2005).