The Safety First Club

In 1855, he traveled to Kansas Territory and became involved in the dispute over whether the territory would enter the United States as a slave-owning or free state. At one point, he volunteered for the risky task of delivering dispatches from the journalist William A. Phillips to Charles L. Robinson, a Free-Stater who was acting as territorial governor and who would later become the first governor of the state of Kansas. For this service, Nichols was appointed to Robinson's staff with the rank of colonel. He returned to Vermont the following year.