Biography by Daughter, Mary L.  Griffing
Poem to Memory of Lydia Griffing Kelly
Tioga District Schools
Select School Ledger
College Tuition Receipts
1849 Junior Exhibition
1852 Commencement Program
1852 Commencement Speech
Wesleyan University Daguerreotypes
Personal Statistics for W.U. Alumni Record
Shawnee County Tax Receipts 1859-1878
Riley County Tax Receipts 1868-1891
Marriages performed by Rev. James S. Griffing

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a brief biographical sketch of Rev. James S. Griffing
by his grandson, John B. Griffing

The spirit of adventure may well have been born in the blood of James Sayre Griffing. He was descended from a long line of sea captains. One, in fact, commanded a privateer in the Revolutionary War. The father of James – Rev. John Griffing – was the first to break the tradition by turning to the ministry. The father showed little of the restless spirit of his ancestors. We catch a glimpse of him when James wrote, after traveling with Rev. Goode and hearing him preach, “How much he reminds me of my own dear departed father. His voice, his kind fatherly heart all attach me to him very much.”

But in the son James, the restless desire to seek new horizons cropped out again. After graduating from Wesleyan University at Middletown, Connecticut, he was not content to settle quietly in some established Eastern village. Instead, he followed the ever-swelling stream of pioneers westward. He had no thought at that time of going to the Kansas-Nebraska Territory. The rush of migration following the signing of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill had not yet begun. Neither had James fully decided whether to be a teacher or preacher. He had paid his way through college by running a private school of high school level, subsisting on the tuitions he collected. They would certainly need teachers in the new frontier country. So we find him early in 1854 in Indianapolis.

The record of his activities is found largely in his letters, first, to his beloved sweetheart, Jemima Augusta Goodrich, a cultured lady of the Goodrich family of Owego, New York, and later, to the same Augusta as the helpmeet of the circuit rider as he wrote to her from his long journeys on horseback.

Indianapolis impressed James as being a real part of the Wild West. He wrote of the bustle and confusion of this frontier town and especially of the lack of cultural influences and of the evidences of wickedness.

Here came the turning point of his life. One day near the middle of March 1854, the pastor of the Methodist Church with which he had become associated, brought him the message that the Presiding Elder would like to see him. James called upon the Elder at once and was quite overwhelmed by his request. In the words of James, “He told me that he had been authorized by the Bishop to build a new church in the upper part of the city. He said he wanted someone to commence pastoral work there, to organize a Sabbath School, appoint and hold meetings among the families, visit from house to house and pray among the families, preach on Sundays in a school house and solicit funds for the new church.”

This was quite an order for a schoolteacher with little experience in preaching. He says of his reply, “In vain did I present my weakness and inability to engage in a task so arduous. But he seemed indisposed to take no for an answer. I, at length, consented to abandon my present occupation just as soon as I could honorably release myself, and engage upon that mission about the first of April.”

Before that April had ended, James had organized a church with stewards, trustees, and a building committee and had built up a Sabbath School enrollment to fifty. By the middle of May, the little schoolhouse where they met was crowded to capacity. Before the end of July, foundations of the new church were being laid and subscriptions were almost sufficient for the building.

James, himself, labored diligently in helping to erect the church building while carrying on his pastoral duties. He completely won the confidence and loyalty of this faithful group. They did not fail to remember him after he had gone on to Kansas, when, two years later, during a severe illness, his circuit rider’s pony, Jacob, was stolen, they raised and sent funds to buy him another.

While James was helping to lay the foundations and new beams, a sudden change had been taking place in both the nature of the migration and of the pioneers who entered the westward flowing stream. In May of 1854, President Pierce signed the Kansas-Nebraska Bill that gave the inhabitants of these new territories the right to vote for themselves whether to be slave or free. Immediately, pro-slavery settlers began to push across the Missouri line to take possession of Kansas Territory. More slowly the fires of abolitionist zeal were fanned into flames, and caravans from New England, New York, and other Eastern points started the long trek to the disputed territory. This stream of dedicated zealots handicapped by time and distance, at first lost ground to the advocates of slavery. But they continued to come. The struggle that followed was bitter and bloody. Just as the Pilgrims and Puritans played a part far beyond their numbers in shaping patterns of thought and action in our evolving America, so these high-principled idealists from the East placed their stamp upon Kansas.

In the struggle for human liberty, the Methodists were not hesitant. While the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was still pending, three Bishops met in Baltimore and planned an exploration of the Kansas-Nebraska Territory. They selected for this work, Rev. William H. Goode of the North Indiana Conference. He was chosen for his knowledge of the West and experience as missionary to the Indians. Rev. Goode lost no time in making this journey to spy out the land. On July 8th, he marked a milestone of history, by preaching at Hickory Point, the first sermon delivered to white settlers in the Kansas-Nebraska Territory.

Reporting back, Rev. Goode recommended that two mission circuits be formed in Kansas Territory, and two in Nebraska Territory with one Presiding Elder over them all. He was at once appointed to execute and supervise the work he proposed. Casting about for an assistant who would have sufficient courage and initiative to push the work of the church forward into the new frontier, he went to call, just before the end of August 1854, upon the young pastor who was building the church in the upper part of Indianapolis. He found him, not in his study, but on top of the church helping to lay the roof.

The new call might have been more overwhelming than the first had James not found so much satisfaction in his church building program. He hated to leave the heroic flock, which had labored with him so faithfully, but Rev. Goode presented an eloquent challenge in the opportunities as well as hardships in the new territory.

For a few weeks James worked feverishly to close in the church and complete his reports. On September 11th, he wrote to his beloved Augusta, “We have our church now enclosed. Providence permitting, we hope before I leave to have the floor laid, the windows and doors in, all ready for the plastering” Even the lure of the great adventure in the new territory could not stifle the longings to remain with “this beloved people, deeply endeared to me in so many ways; who have borne so kindly with all my imperfections, been willing to sympathize amidst all my embarrassments, and have been ready to assist in every possible way.” But a month later writing from the bank of the Illinois River, he states, “We are about 200 miles out of Indianapolis, moving slowly toward our destination.”

The caravan was made up of two covered wagons. Rev. Goode with Mrs. Goode and their large family of children rode in one of these, driven by a young man taken along as helper named John Wilson. James drove the other team with a wagon heavily loaded with trunks, furniture and supplies. The journey led through the center of Illinois and then Missouri, thus continually passing farmhouses of established settlements from which they could secure necessary feed and supplies. To James, the trip was one grand outdoor picnic. Writing to Augusta from one of their Sunday camps, he states, “I wish you could only look in upon us as we fall upon the large pile of sweet potatoes we have just raked from the ashes of our welcome fire. These with the excellent sour baked apples, toasted bread, and a number of other favorite dishes, cause us to be very fond of our migratory life. And then at noon we stop near some brook in the best grove we can find, and spread our tidy cloth for our rich repast. I know were it not for our big wagons and unshaven faces, you would mistake us for a picnic party.”

Yet there are many even in these days of pioneering who would have thought it no picnic. Casually referring to the routine of each day, James writes, “Rise at 4 o’clock, feed the horses, water and curry them, roll up the bedclothes and tie them, make preparations for breakfast, eat heartily, take down our tent, stow all our things and journey on.”

The journey was so timed that Rev. Goode could make a side trip to Hannibal and attend the Missouri Conference to which both he and James now belonged. “He returned, “ James wrote, “and brought our appointments. Mine is to be the Wakarusa Mission… I was expecting to go to Omaha Mission, but the Bishop made the change in order that I might be in the vicinity of Brother Goode.”

On November 4th, five weeks from the date they set out from Indianapolis, the little caravan entered Kansas Territory. The day was one never to be forgotten by them not only because of its historical importance, but because they encountered the most harrowing experience of their entire journey. Arriving at the bank of the Kansas River, near its junction with the Missouri, they found that the means of crossing was a primitive ferry operated by Indians who manipulated the craft by holding to a rope with their hands. They first took the lighter wagon with the family over safely, and then returned with the team to have all the horses on board to haul the heavier freight wagon up the steep embankment when they arrived. But before they had completed the crossing with the heavier load, the ferryboat began to sink. They freed the frightened horses to jump overboard and swim to land where they stuck in the mud a few yards from shore. Rev. Goode and the Indians also swam to safety. James stayed with the abandoned craft, which soon stuck on a sand bar. All hands spent from ten o’clock in the morning till sundown prying the horses from the mud, then carrying freight and then the wagon, piece by piece, over a temporary bridge from the stranded ferry to the shore.

Rev. Goode established his headquarters and family on the Wyandotte Reservation. James went to Wakarusa Mission where he was cordially received by Dr. Abraham Still who provided a temporary home for him at such times as he would return from his long circuit. This Dr. Still was a pastor who had left Missouri because of his anti-slavery views. He practiced medicine among the Indians and settlers. One of his sons was the founder of Osteopathy.

During the first months of his service, James’ mission included the entire area from Wakarusa to Fort Riley and north up the valleys of the Big Blue River and Wild Cat Creek. Two of his appointments were to Shawnee Indian groups to whom he preached through an interpreter. He covered his circuit on his Indian pony, Jacob, stopping at settlements that were springing up and at isolated farmhouses. Wherever there were enough interested settlers, he would organize a class and appoint a class leader to carry on between visits. As the settlements became towns, the classes grew into churches.

Never were sheep in more need of a shepherd than these immigrants to the new country. Many who arrived expecting an easy life in a virgin land turned back disillusioned. The zealots who remained and braved the hardships suffered during the first years from lack of warm houses to protect them from the wintry gales, lack of proper food and all the comforts of life. Many, especially of the children, died during these hard years. But even more than the cold of winter and misery of poverty were the dread of the perils of active warfare. Every immigrant who entered the new territory came at the risk of his life. The pro-slavery elements that arrived first were determined to drive out or gain ascendancy over the free-state settlers by force of arms. Throughout the most exposed settlements, robbery, arson, murder and pitched battles between armed forces took place without number.

On the 11th of May 1856, pro-slavery forces besieged Lawrence and ten days later a considerable portion of the town was looted and burned. In September 1856, Ossawatomie was burned rendering fifty families homeless. These were incidents in a continuous conflict in which women and children had to be constantly ready to flee and hide, and men, if not away on a journey, to defend their homes.

When the circuit rider called at either a settlement or on isolated settlers, it was something of an event in the lives of these fearful and homesick pioneers. Usually all of the neighbors that could be notified would gather for an evening of religious service. Preaching was not a formal thing to be given on Sundays at 11:00 a.m., but often services were held every night when the pastor stopped at the end of his day’s journey.

From many indirect evidences, we can learn that James was an ideal type for the task of a frontier circuit rider. In discussing his qualities, Roll Naylor, who grew up near Tecumseh and knew him well, said, “He was not a pulpit orator, but did his best work through personal contacts as friend, and counselor, and especially as teacher.” In his own letters he speaks of “mingling his prayers with theirs at the family alter.” It would not be correct to say that James was adapted to the hardships of a circuit rider’s career because of his physical ruggedness. Like others among the first settlers, he often suffered from illness and once nearly perished… About this collapse, Rev. Goode wrote, “Brother Griffing was faithful and diligent for two years upon the Wakarusa work, and near the close of the second year, was prostrated for months by a severe illness.”

On December 2, 1854, James wrote that he expected to begin building his cabin soon. On the 11th of the same month he wrote that he was staying with Thomas Still on a farm next to his while working on his cabin. They had a blanket for a door, a dirt floor, the trunks served as table and boxes for chairs. Flour and other food was kept in a barrel with a tight cover as the wolves entered any time they were away from the cabin. He was alone that night with a pack of wolves near by, “making the night merry.”

On January 10, 1855, he wrote that his fifteen-foot square cabin was progressing nicely though yet unfinished. He asked Augusta to be saving seeds for a garden. On January 24, after a big snow, James wrote Augusta that he was feeding cardinals and parakeets outside his cabin with crumbs of johnnycake.

According to James, one of the first classes organized was at Lawrence with eleven members. Since Lawrence was one of the first settlements to be established and on the line of movement westward, it grew rapidly. The first class organized in Shawnee County was at Brownville, now called Auburn, with six members, W. T. Johnson class leader.

One of the next classes was at Tecumseh, a stronghold of pro-slavery settlers. The first sermon preached in Tecumseh had been delivered by a pro-slave minister, Rev. L. B. Stateler. He held the meeting in a tent on October 10, 1854. The new class at Tecumseh came into lively conflict, therefore, with the movement to establish the Methodist Episcopal Church South. Rev. Goode wrote in Outposts of Zion, early in February, “Passing through Tecumseh and visiting Christian families on the way, we stopped at the cabin of a German Methodist [named Francis Grassmuck] from near Brookville, Indiana. A meeting was agreed upon for the evening and Brother Griffing set out at a rapid gait on his pony to notify the settlers. Taunts had been out in this neighborhood, our pretensions to influence had been ridiculed by those of a different interest, but the evening brought a goodly number of quiet and willing hearers… Others had attempted an organization of a different character and had failed.”

From Tecumseh, James and Rev. Goode traveled to Lawrence where the second quarterly conference was held on February 10th and 11th, 1855. The meeting was held at the Kannaday and Fry boarding house, commonly called the St. Nicholas House. Rev. Goode said of it, “Our place of service was the hotel, a long sod building thatched with prairie grass, the great room serving as dining room, parlor, and dormitory, a table with bench seats reaching from end-to-end, and a line of double bunks stretching the same length, were the sleeping accommodations.”

"We are trying to build a church at both Topeka and Lawrence and have near five hundred dollars subscribed at each place. Soon as we can double this we shall push matters along…” wrote James. “Our Topeka class numbers 28 at present. They are all easterners but my circuit is such that I cannot hold meetings there more often than once in four weeks…”

“Tell the Connecticut people that their representatives here who are settled like the country much and could not be hired to migrate back again to the old rocks and black barren soil of the old blue state. Tell all the chicken hearted that Kansas is to be the Eden of the earth, the home of the free.”

The Third Quarterly Conference of the Wakarusa District was held May 27 and 28 in a grove on the Wakarusa, which the Herald of Freedom identified as “about two miles from the Big Mound near Mr. Morehead’s.” It was advertised through this paper that “those desiring to come are requested to come with their camp-wagons, prepared to stay during the two day services.”

According to Rev. Goode, “a slight commotion occurred” in the midst of this Quarterly meeting. Apparently the rattle of a snake was heard but one of the men crushed it with a pole and it caused only a momentary pause in the service.

On June 8th, 1855, James reported completing the third complete round of his 200-mile circuit. At the same time, he was planning the trip east to be married and fetch his bride. In his letter to Augusta he wrote, “Do you think you will know me? Doubtful. I shall be too much like a Mexican in color, too much like a rag-picker in appearance, and too much like a Jonathan in manner. I do not know how long it will take to rub off the boorishness acquired by a year’s life on the frontier, but hope that a visit out where there are houses, and beds to sleep on, where they eat on tables instead of trunks, sit on chairs rather than stools, will do me good.”

After June 1855, it was no longer necessary for James to cover such great distances on his pony. The western end of the Wakarusa Mission was cut off and set up as the Fort Riley Mission with Rev. Lovejoy appointed as missionary. His field of service extended some thirty miles east of Manhattan and seventy miles west with approximately 12 stations in need of preaching services. Relieved of this vast portion of his original circuit, James was able to concentrate on the points nearer his Wakarusa headquarters, including Lawrence, Tecumseh, Topeka, and Auburn. We learn that by the summer of 1855, he was able to keep an appointment at Topeka every four weeks.

Before 1855 had ended, the arrival of new preachers made possible the subdivision of the eastern end of the Wakarusa Mission. In June, James sold his claim near Wakarusa and bought one midway between Tecumseh and Topeka. This homestead became the farm home of the Griffing family for three generations. The location greatly facilitated the pastoral service to appointments within a reasonable radius of Topeka.

In September of 1855, James was sent east to raise money for the building of churches in Lawrence and Topeka. On September 13, he married Augusta Goodrich in Owego, New York, and returned with her to his mission field in Kansas Territory.

James never forgot to apply his gift for teaching or to make the most of his experience and training as an educator. He served as one of the first Superintendents of Education in Shawnee County. Throughout his various circuits, he carried what was probably the first circulating library in the territory. In one of his saddlebags, he carried his lariat, some corndodger for himself and ears of corn for Jacob, and in the other a few volumes to pass from one book hungry pioneer to another.

On the 17th of March 1857, James met with a group of preachers at Blue Mound, near Lawrence, to discuss the founding of a University. Out of this meeting came the Association – with James as one of the trustees, which secured a territorial charter for Baker University in 1858.

At the third Kansas and Nebraska Annual Conference held in Topeka, April 15 – 19, 1858, we find that the committee on education of which James was a member, reported progress in the erection of the Baker University buildings, in plans for the Bluemont Central College to be built near Manhattan, and for Simpson University to be built in Omaha.

James found joy in the outdoor life his circuits necessitated because he was a lover of nature. His letters abound with accounts of birds and animals, some species of which have long passed from the scene. In one letter, he mentions the brilliant plumage of the flocks of parakeets. In another he tells of the howling of the wolves at night when, by the way, the cabin in which he was staying had no door. When on a scouting party with the militia to pursue Indians that had massacred a number of settlers, his company came upon a great herd of buffalo. He wrote, “Their number seems beyond computation.”

Some years after this pioneer period, John S. Griffing, eldest son of James, expressed indifference to the most delectable fried chicken. “I had to eat so much prairie chicken when I was a boy,” he said, “I never cared much for chicken in any form since.” John explained that throughout the long winter months, the prairie chicken was their main source of food and that their shed was stocked during the cold weather with an ample supply, which the family consumed day after day.

James was a great lover of trees. No one in the whole countryside so devotedly gave himself to the planting of trees. Whole groves of maples, of black walnuts, and of cottonwoods were carefully set out. Fruit trees were his special interest. He sold one corner of his property to Jim Harrop, a nurseryman, and from him secured specimens of every kind of apple obtainable, a total of sixteen varieties. In 1858 he set out the big orchard, which was in its glorious prime forty years later. Then, at apple blossom time, parties would drive out from Topeka to feast their eyes on the masses of pink bloom, inhale their rich fragrance and listen to the hum of myriads of bees.

In the list of appointments made in 1858, we find James assigned to Indianola. From that time on, it was one frontier post after another, each with its little circuit of preaching and pastoral services. Seneca, Circleville, and Oaskaloosa were among those served.

The Civil War in the Kansas-Nebraska Territory merely meant a continuation of the strife that really began in 1854, though a much greater population was involved. Probably the most destructive blow was from Quantrell’s raiders who burnt homes in their path while frightened women and children hid in cornfields. The raiders, in August 1863, sacked and burned Lawrence, killing 150 men of the town.

An even greater invasion was attempted by Confederate General Price, who believed Kansas undefended and easy prey. But at the state line, he was confronted and turned back by great numbers of state militia organized for home defense. James served in the militia not only in the defense against Gen. Price’s attempted invasion but on another occasion in pursuit of Cheyenne Indians who had burned homes and massacred settlers in the region west of Marysville along the Republican River. Of the latter expedition, James wrote from the field, “We found all the ranches burned over a distance of 40 to 50 miles and it is reported that all are burned as far as Ft. Kearney… Some 35 persons are known to be killed and how many more is unknown.”

Thus ten years of war and dangerous living passed. But even in time of peace, the life of a frontier circuit rider and his family was not a bed of roses. Throughout the days of conflict and those that followed, Augusta must be given her due credit for the faith, courage, and diligence necessary to maintain the home and rear a family under the harsh conditions that prevailed. Preachers’ salaries most frequently quoted for those days were $300 per year. But payment of money pledged was one thing, collecting quite another. Big-hearted James, on many occasions, cheerfully accepted produce of questionable value when cash was badly needed, giving liberal credit on pledges. Coin of the realm was hard to come by. On one occasion, Augusta was fortunate in receiving a good piece of cloth. What a wonderful thing she thought if it could be made into a much needed coat for James. She was not a tailor and had never made a coat, but she had skill with a needle. So she ripped up one of her husband’s old coats in order to use the pieces for a pattern. But the yardage was too small. There was no way in which she could cut it to come out just right. “Finally,” she said, “I found that by piecing the underside of one sleeve, there would be enough.” She made the coat.

Following the Civil War, one of the problems that arose was that of the “Freedmen.” Great numbers of freed slaves drifted about, homeless, penniless, unemployed, and disillusioned in their search for the Promised Land. Great numbers of them came to Kansas where organizations were set up to give them relief and help in getting them established. The churches made this form of service a matter of special concern.

Manhattan had received a considerable influx of this ex-slave immigration in the late 1870’s. To meet this problem, James was given as one of his appointments, the Freedman’s Mission in Manhattan. It was his responsibility to serve as pastor and much more, as a friend, counselor and one who could help these poor people in all their physical and spiritual needs. It might be hard to imagine a less inspiring field of service. There is little recorded as to the results of James’s work among the Negroes. But one little glimpse shines through with the brilliance of a morning star. In 1903, the Great Flood struck Manhattan, filling the streets of the lower part of the city with rushing torrents. A grandson of James, who had been born after James’ death, the present writer, was riding with his Uncle Will, James’ second son, who was driving his buggy to view the scenes of desolation. Before a modest cottage in the Negro section, an old Negro was standing in water knee deep that was swamping his house and covering his floors and furniture with muddy Kansas River slime. Will stopped to give the old man a word of consolation. As he spoke, the Negro turned a beaming face toward him and said with a smile, “Dey’s sompin’ good in it somewhere.” As Will drove on, he remarked, “That man was a member of your grandpa’s church. He had the faith to see good in a desolate world."