Background
Samuel Danford Nicholson was born on February 22, 1859 in Springfield, Prince Edward Island, Canada. He was the eldest of the thirteen children born to Donald M. and Catherine (McKenzie) Nicholson, sturdy Scotch settlers.
Samuel Danford Nicholson was born on February 22, 1859 in Springfield, Prince Edward Island, Canada. He was the eldest of the thirteen children born to Donald M. and Catherine (McKenzie) Nicholson, sturdy Scotch settlers.
Samuel attended village school. At the age of nineteen he went to Bay City, Michigan, and continued his schooling there while living with an uncle and earning his board and room.
After working for a short time on a farm in Nebraska, in 1881 he moved to Colorado, reaching the booming mining camp of Leadville with twenty-five cents in his pocket.
He worked for several years as a mine laborer; then advanced to positions of foreman, superintendent, and manager of various mines, his most important position being that of president and manager of the Western Mining Company.
Hard-earned savings he invested in mining prospects, the first of which proved failures. Further efforts met with better results, his leases of the Colonel Sellers, the Maid of Erin, and other mines bringing him good returns. Part of the mining profits he invested in banking and public-utility enterprises in Leadville and Denver.
He was elected mayor of Leadville on the Populist ticket in 1893, and reelected in 1895. A miners' strike and other difficult local problems he handled with considerable executive ability. He was sent as delegate to the Populist National Convention of 1896.
He had close business relations with the American Smelting and Refining Company, controlled by the Guggenheims, and worked for the election of Simon Guggenheim to the United States Senate in 1906.
Nicholson was an unsuccessful candidate for governor of Colorado at the Republican primaries in 1914 and 1916.
During the World War he served as state chairman of the Liberty and Victory Loan campaigns, and of the Salvation Army drive, and was a member of the fuel administration for Colorado.
In 1920 he was elected to the United States Senate on the Republican ticket. In that body he concerned himself more with local than national affairs, being especially active on the committee for mines and mining. He introduced a measure providing for a secretary of mining in the president's cabinet, but it failed of enactment. His senatorial career was cut short by death in 1923.
After the decline of the Populists, Nicholson resumed his connection with the Republican party.
Nicholson was tall and reddishhaired. He had a good physique, courage, and perseverance.
On November 28, 1887, he married Anna Neary of Clifton Springs, New York. He was survived by a son and a daughter.
