Washington B. Nicholson and Martha Wafer Nicholson arrived in Claiborne Parish in late 1844 and first settled at "Parker's Creek," a now-unknown location, before moving in the summer of 1846 to this place, which they called "Cane Ridge." There they bought land from the United States Government and established a 280-acre homestead on the surrounding property. As the community grew, it gained a post office, a store, and a building on the Homer-Farmerville Road about one mile east that served as its first church and school. The Nicholson family left Cane Ridge in 1853 for the Forest Grove community in search of better schools for their children, and after the post office closed in 1894, Cane Ridge slowly declined and eventually disappeared, though Nicholson Creek still runs through the center of the old Nicholson property. James William Nicholson, born June 16, 1844, in Macon County, Alabama, was an infant when his parents traveled down the Alabama River to Mobile, then by ship to New Orleans, by steamboat up the Mississippi and Red Rivers to Shreveport, and finally by oxcart to Claiborne Parish, where they settled at Cane Ridge in 1846. A gifted mathematician, he earned a Master's Degree from Homer Male College, taught there and at the Arizona Academy of Claiborne Parish, joined the faculty of Louisiana State University in 1877, was elected chair of its Mathematics Department that year, twice served as president of LSU, authored many textbooks used throughout Louisiana and beyond, remained in LSU's service until his death in 1917, and was honored by the naming of Nicholson Hall on the university campus and Nicholson Drive in Baton Rouge. He is buried in Magnolia Cemetery in Baton Rouge, and his autobiography, "Stories of Dixie," published in 1915, recounts the Nicholson family's migration and life in Claiborne Parish.