Nikoghayos Ter-Hovhannisyan was born to an Armenian family in the Ghshlagh village of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Beginning in 1893, he taught at the school in the village of Galasar, Salmas (modern Iran, near the border with Turkey), where he took an active part in the Armenian national and political life as a member of the Union of Armenian revolutionaries (later the Armenian Revolutionary Federation).