Kenyon Nicholson

The library has recently acquired a photograph of Broadway playwright Kenyon Nicholson to add to the local history collection. Nicholson was born in Crawfordsville, May 21, 1894, the son of prominent Crawfordsville photographer Thomas Brown Nicholson and his wife, Anne Kenyon Nicholson.  In 1916, Kenyon Nicholson wrote the script for the Montgomery County Indiana Centennial pageant with fellow Wabash College student, Harold Watson. Following graduation from Wabash, Nicholson served in France as a second lieutenant during World War I. After the war, he was a press agent for the Murat Theater in Indianapolis, and later served as assistant to Hatcher Hughes, a prominent playwright and instructor at Columbia University. He wrote eighteen plays during his career, including Honor Bright, which was written with famed Crawfordsville novelist and poet, Meredith Nicholson. His play, The Barker, was his most successful and was made into a movie three times. He died in New Jersey on December 19, 1986.