[5] In the 1898 election, he was nominated by the Democrats for a seat on the Ohio Supreme Court, but lost to Republican William T. Spear.

[4] In 1911, Lieutenant Governor Atlee Pomerene was elected to the United States Senate and resigned.

[4] Nichols was appointed on September 22, 1913, to the new position of Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court by Governor James Cox, and elected to a full six-year term in 1914, serving until the end of 1920.

[6] On October 19, 1942, Nichols was admitted to Jewish Hospital in Cincinnati with a fractured vertebra.

He died there of a coronary thrombosis on December 29, 1942, and was buried in Batavia Union Cemetery.