Rev. Giddings comes to Nebraska Territory

A few weeks after the Annual Kansas-Nebraska Conference, James Griffing traveled to St. Louis to meet his sister and her husband who were coming to Nebraska with their family of four girls. James had planned on accompanying the Giddings family all the way to their new home in Table Rock, Nebraska Territory, but when the steamboat hit a snag on the Missouri River near St. Joseph and was delayed for a week awaiting repairs, he left the family and returned to his circuit duties. Before leaving the family, he took them on a brief journey inland and gave the Giddings girls their first introduction to Indians.

The following article was published in the Boulder Genealogical Society Quarterly, Vol. 16, Issue 2, in May 1984. It was submitted by Patricia St. Clair Ostwald, a descendant of Charles and Clarissa Giddings.

Charles Woodbury Giddings, Methodist minister and Nebraska pioneer, was born 10 May 1810 in Norwich, Connecticut, son of Capt. James Giddings and his wife Lucy Deming Giddings. The Giddings Genealogy (1882) by Minot S. Giddings, p. 194 notes: “In 1810 Capt. Giddings was shipwrecked off the coast of Hatteras and, losing nearly all of his property, gave up a seafaring life for that of a farmer.” He subsequently left Connecticut to settle in Herrick, Susquehanna Co. Pennsylvania, where his son Charles (hereafter designated C. W.) grew to manhood.

In 1835, C. W. Giddings, as a recently ordained Deacon in the Old Oneida Conference of the Methodist Church, married Clarissa Griffing. She was born 1 January 1811 in New York State, probably at Owego in Tioga County, and was also of New England heritage. Her parents Rev. John Griffing and Lydia Redfield Griffing had come to New York from Guilford, Connecticut, and Richmond, Massachusetts. The ancestry of C. W. and Clarissa may be traced almost entirely to men and women who settled in New England prior to 1650.

Rev. Charles W. Giddings and wife, Clarissa [Griffing] Giddings
Table Rock Historical Society

Both C. W. Giddings and his father-in-law, John Griffing, were connected with the Oneida Conference, which at that time served the Susquehanna Valley area of both New York and Pennsylvania. In 1852 the conference was divided and this area became part of the Wyoming Conference. Between 1832 when he was admitted as a “Probationer” and 1857 when he left for Nebraska, C. W. Giddings served 14 different locations in these conferences.

In the 1850’s the northeast corner of Pennsylvania was economically depressed. C. W. Giddings, by this time father of a son and four daughters, envisioned a better life for the poor of this area through resettlement in the west. He hoped to interest co-workers in the Methodist church, and their parishioners, in organizing a company for this purpose.

As early as 1849 he was corresponding with his brother Jabez D. Giddings of Brenham, Texas, about possibilities of ministering and teaching in Texas.[1] However, Clarissa had a brother James Griffing in Topeka, Kansas, working as a missionary with the Indians. Through him they learned of desirable land opening up for settlement in the southeast corner of Nebraska, and on 2 October 1856, C. W. Giddings signed documents as a stockholder of the newly formed Nebraska Settlement Company. He had spent the summer of 1856 in Nebraska as agent of the company and with R. V. Muir purchased the interest of the Table Rock Townsite Company in the south half of Section 32, Township 3, Range 12 east, on the Nemaha River in Pawnee County, Nebraska.

The first settlers representing the Nebraska Settlement Company at Table Rock were the Horatio Nelson Gere family. Leaving Oxford in Chenango County, New York, they arrived 7 April 1857 at the town site and lived temporarily in a small cabin left by previous owners. Prospective settlers coming from the East to look over the area and choose their land stayed with the Geres, who found themselves running a boarding house in a one room cabin. Several small hand-sewn diaries in the Gere collection at the Nebraska State Historical Society describe in a poignant way the trials of this time. The entries by both H. N. Gere and his wife Juliana (Grant) Gere detail the day-to-day struggle for existence in the first years of the settlement in Table Rock. There were two beds, one with a trundle, in the one-room cabin, and by placing wagon sheets and feather beds on the floor as many as nineteen people were accommodated. All these people had to be fed by Juliana Gere with the help of her daughters Julia, aged 17, and Hannah Jane, aged 12. (Hannah Jane fell ill the first summer and died 18 July 1857, and Julia died 14 April 1859. Both illnesses and deaths are described in heart-rending detail in the diaries.)

C. W. Giddings stayed with the Gere family several times during the year 1857 and again upon arrival with his family in [May] 1858. The Giddings family trip from Pennsylvania to Nebraska was described by daughter Fannie years later, in 1832, when interviewed concerning her early memories. This interview is preserved by the Table Rock Historical Society. The family in 1858 consisted of the parents C. W. and Clarissa, and daughters Fannie, soon to be 17, Lydia, about 15, Sarah 13, and baby Mary, not yet two. The eldest child, son Giles, does not appear of record after the 1850 census. Fanny tells the story – “The first of May we started west (from Scranton, Pennsylvania). We traveled by train to St. Louis – farthest point west the train ran at that time There were only four cars on the train and they were very crowded. We had to sit three or four in a seat. And we had to sleep that way on the train for three different nights.” (The train was detained in Indiana by high water over the tracks.) The family arrived in St. Louis about a week after leaving Pennsylvania, and spent two days there buying a horse, wagon, and supplies. At that time, the boat went up-river once a week between St. Louis and Omaha. “Boarding this river boat at St. Louis, we started up the Missouri toward St. Joseph. All went well until the boat struck a snag and tore off one of the big paddle wheels. It also rammed a big hole in the prow of the boat. This happened just a short distance from St. Joseph. We were stranded here nearly a week awaiting repairs. We stayed right on the boat most of the time. We took one trip to see an Indian camp, but the rest of the time we just waited on the boat. At that time St. Joseph was just a few little old shacks. Indians would flock around the bank of the river begging from the passengers on the boat, but the Indians were not allowed on deck. Landing at Aspenwall, the remainder of the journey was to be made by team and wagon, and afoot. I walked behind the wagon, holding on to it to keep from stumbling and falling. This was during the rainy season and in some of the bottom lands, we had to wade through water from shoe top to deeper.” Leaving Aspenwall at noon on 25 May 1858, a tired and footsore family reached their future homeplace of Table Rock at midnight.

The Gere diary also notes the arrival in the middle of the night of the tired, cold, wet, and hungry Giddings family. “I got a fire and prepared supper as soon as I could, then ousted the family and prepared beds for them (every bed was occupied when they came). I finally got them all to bed and went to bed myself, [wrote Mrs. Gere]. Soon after that, both families moved into the newly finished Boarding House, each taking half of the building and sharing the boarders between them. The first year both the school taught by Fannie Giddings and the church services were held in the Giddings front room.

C. W. Giddings was an ardent promoter of Nebraska as a frontier for settlement. The prevalent view of those wishing to push the settlement west of the Missouri River is reflected in the introduction to the book, “History of Nebraska Methodism” (1904). David Marquette writes, “Indeed it may be affirmed that the Indians turned Nebraska over to the Christianized white race in a state of raw crude nature, not one whit improved, or its wealth and resources developed in all the years and centuries of their possession.” In a broadsheet, published 20 August 1857, as an extra by the “Nebraska Advertiser” of Brownsville on the Missouri River, Giddings as General Superintendent of the Nebraska Settlement Company, extolled the glories of southeast Nebraska in five full columns of rhetoric. He called this area the Garden of the West, “a garden more highly cultivated and far more productive under the hand of the great spirit above than the most highly cultivated portions of the East.” He continued in great detail to describe the beauty of the scenery, richness and fertility of the soil, abundant minerals, and healthy climate.

However, this glorious optimism was a bubble which burst in the face of the realities of flood and drought, grasshoppers and disease. Prior to the summer of 1858, 150 families had settled in the Table Rock area, but by the end of 1858 only 15 families remained. It was said they too would have left had money and conveyances been available.

Giddings’ plan for the Table Rock town was a forerunner of the colony settlements of 1870 and 1871 in Greeley and Longmont, Colorado. However, the Nebraska Settlement lacked the experience and financial backing of these later colonies, and the families that remained at Table Rock struggled with nearly insurmountable problems for a number of years. By 1863 the company had been absorbed by Giddings, who filed suit against several of the original associators and purchased at auction the remaining lots. In an attempt to put Table Rock on a firm financial footing, he initiated a number of business enterprises including a coal company as early as 1857, and later a creamery and cheese factory. It was important for the area to have transportation for their farm products and constant attempts were made to interest a railroad in building a route through the Nemaha Valley in Pawnee County. Finally, in 1872 the Atchison and Nebraska Railroad reached the town. In spite of all this activity, Table Rock never became the metropolis that its founders dreamed of, but remains today a quiet small town, remarkably dedicated to preserving area history. Several buildings around the town square serve as museums depicting various aspects of pioneer life.

C. W. and Clarissa Giddings remained in Table Rock the rest of their lives raising their daughters and nourishing the Methodist community there. While he was not active in the ministry in the earliest settlement days, in 1865 Giddings was again called, serving the Nebraska Conference as Presiding Elder, an office he filled until retiring in 1871. He died at Table Rock 23 December 1879, and Clarissa survived him only until 17 October 1880.

[1] The letter from Jabez Giddings to Charles Giddings, dated February 10, 1849, reads as follows:

Dear Brother

I received yours of the 11th of November last some three months since, in which you state you wrote by James, which I have not received. I delayed answering yours expecting to obtain the ones by James as he passed Galveston, on his way to San Antonio, some time previous to the receipt of yours. I have not heard from him since his arrival at San Antonio. He dropt one of his left hand scrolls to me from Galveston, and not a line from one of the many friends in Pennsylvania, nor one word about them. I expected he would have passed this way with his wife but he determined at Galveston to go by water to Indian Point – as the roads were very bad at that time.

In relation to your inquiries, I have no doubt but you would be eminently useful in this country. There is a wide field of labor and few comparatively in the vineyard. There is work in abundance, and need of both preachers and teachers. Whether you could be more useful here than where you now are, I cannot say. But this is a new field of labor and constantly and rapidly extending, and the want of competent ministers leads the Conference to press many into the service of the church that are better fitted for the plow than the pulpit; although we are by no means entirely destitute of able men. Our Conferences have a few men of fair talent, and several who are useful in the work – but again they are trying to work up some of the nottiest stuff perhaps that you ever did see. I will send you the minutes of the Conference soon as published.

You cannot hope, as a traveling minister in a new country, that your family be comfortable as in an old settled country. If you, and your wife, were to come here and select a suitable location for a School and bother devote your attention to teaching, you could in a short time find yourself in a comfortable way to live for a new country.

The country abounds in hog and hominy. Cheap pork at $2 per hundred and corn at 37 cents per bushel a this time. Molasses and sugar are made in great abundance cheaper this season than ever. Sugar at about 6 cents a pound and molasses at 25 cents per gallon. As for apples, dumplins, and cakes and flour doings, they are out of the question. Such dainties live only in memory. I might have added beef to the list as it is plenty, and cheap. Texas is a cheap country to live in to those who can get along on beef, hog and hominy. There is a great demand for good teachers here, both male and female. I think there will be an opening at this place for one next fall. I wish you could send one of the right sort, a real live full blooded Yankee.

Fathers and mothers are the legal heirs, at least so recognized by the Court in this country. If there are any others, they would be the brothers and sisters of Brother Giles. You know the intention of father and mother to give the estate to the children. There can be no debts or demands of Giles come against the land. The estate has been settled and father and mother admitted as heirs and myself as their attorney.

I cannot say what the cash value of the land is, or the share for the reason we have no cash scarcely here, and everyone has land for sale. I will not sell any of the land for less than 50 cents per acre and only enough to pay the outfit at that. I had an offer of 50 cents per acre for some 600 acres last fall and sent word to the man I would take it but have not heard from him since. I hope to make it worth a dollar per acre. It may be worth more and again it may not sell for that. It has ever been my wish that the children should each retain their interest until it was sold. Land can be purchased here very cheap, yet choice selections at times sell high. Land is really in my judgment worth more than it will bring. But I am unable to set a cash value upon land until I can make a sell. Then it is worth to me all I can get. I have sold some at 25 cents, others at $1. And some choice tracts at $2.50 per acre within the last year. Yet in these transactions I can realize but little money. There is 3396 acres of land. It is well selected and in a few years I think it could sell for $1 per acre, perhaps part trade, or time. I do not expect cash at that, and it may be many years before you can make a sale.

I would like much to receive the New York Christian Advocate, and the more as my old teacher, Rev. George Peck, is now Editor. I will send you occasionally a paper that you may see what is going on in this quarter. We are all well and have had excellent health since I last wrote you and family. Your brother, J. D. Giddings

Source: Mesquite Tree, Vol. 17, Issue 3, September 1981.