The suffering brethren

The Committee appointed to nominate officers for the different conference societies made their report as follows, which was adopted:

Wiley Jones, President
Thomas J. Ferrill, Vice President
James S. Griffing, Secretary
Hiram Burch, Treasurer

Report of the Committee on Necessitous Cases: The Committee take pleasure in stating that a sum of $496.20 from the Cincinnati Conference, and $50.00 from Fayette, Mills County, Iowa, was placed in our hands to be distributed among the suffering brethren who have labored in Kansas, and who have met with heavy losses and endured very great sufferings and hardships during the late troubles in the Territory. We have distributed the same as follows:

L. B. Dennis    $60.00 [3]
J. Denison        $45.00
C. H. Lovejoy    $45.00
A. Still                $45.00
W. G. Piper        $45.00
Wm. Butt            $45.00
A. L. Downey    $45.00

In remembering the first conference held at Lawrence, James later wrote that, "W. G. Piper, of precious memory, was appointed....to take charge of the work [at Topeka during] the coming year. It was unfortunate for myself as well as the church that I was entirely without ministerial experience, having been sent out on the frontier by the church from the Missouri Conference as a probationer to receive my first lessons in the great school of the itinerancy. [Consequently, I was assigned as the "junior minister" on the Topeka circuit during 1856-1857. During that year] $300 was appropriated by the Committee on Missions to assist in the work. [By the end of that second year,] 80 members and 5 probationers were reported. The place for preaching [in Topeka] in these early times was at a hall [4] built on Topeka Avenue and occupied alternatively by the different branches of the church until they might build homes of their own. Consequently, no other than what is called a Union Sabbath school was organized and sustained." [5]

The First Annual Meeting of the Kansas-Nebraska Conference was concluded within days of the Presidential Election of 1856. Unable to cast ballots in the election, most free-soilers living in Kansas Territory waited in suspense for the election results, knowing that the fate of their cause would depend in a large measure on the choice of the Nation. Isaac Goodnow, Manhattan resident, probably captured the sentiments of most free-soilers best when he sat down to write in his diary on Friday, November 21, 1856:

[Received a visit] from Gen. Pomeroy. Buchanan is elected President. This I consider a national calamity and especially a calamity for poor Kansas! Yet God is able to bring good out of evil and save the territory from the curse of slavery. In Him is our hope. I can but feel that Kansas must be Free! May the Lord reighn!

... The last time Augusta wrote, James Griffing had gone to Conference at Lawrence on horseback. He was a great deal better then but she was afraid he would get sick again. [Our brother] Jim had the chills too.…

...I received a letter from [your sister] Augusta a week or two since. She was very well and [her husband] James Griffing was improving but I suppose you have heard from them since and I can tell you no news of them.

The elections are over and [John C.] Fremont is not to be our next President. But we are not disheartened. We are ready, or rather getting ready, for another fight – feeling some that our principles are right and in the end will prevail. You know “Truth crushed to earth will rise again.” Did not New England do nobly; and New York stood by her side. I am proud of New England....

Give my love to the folks at home [in Owego] and do not forget to write me and keep me informed how you get along. Yours truly, -- Elizur T. Goodrich

^[1] Don W. Holter, Fire on the Prairie, p. 70.

[2] The "senior minister" appointed to the Topeka Circuit with James Griffing was Rev. William G. Piper. When Rev. Piper died on May 15, 1869, James prepared his obituary notice:

[Rev. Piper] was born Aug. 23, 1817, in Hopkinston, N. H. In 1837 he removed to Illinois and entered a school in the town of Ebenezer, near Jacksonville, taught by his oldest brother Rev. John H. Piper, where he obtained the rudiments of an education. Whilst attending a camp meeting near Pulaski, Hancock County, Illinois, on the 6th day of August 1838, he was converted, being at that time 21 years of age. Believing that he was moved by the Holy Ghost to preach that Gospel that had done so much for him, he obtained license signed by Rev. John S. Barger of Quincy District, Illinois Conference, August 14, 1841. In September of the same year, he was received on trial in the Illinois Conference and was appointed to the Rushville Circuit. In 1855, [after a series of appointments in Illinois, his health failed] and, thinking that a change of climate would perhaps be for the best, he took a transfer to Kansas which, at that time, was just opening for settlement. It was my fortune to know him quite intimately during much of his stay in Kansas. The invigorating air and stirring questions agitating this new State imparted new life [to Rev. Piper] and he seemed to feel as if God had much for him to do here. He entered at once with great zeal upon the choice work of his life. His first appointment was Topeka circuit where he labored with great acceptability and laid foundations upon which others have since largely built. In 1857, [he] was sent to Big Springs circuit, where also he did a good work, organizing classes and Sabbath schools, and attending to all the duties of a Methodist Preacher. In 1858, he was appointed to the Auburn and Tecumseh circuit where he labored the former part of the year with some success, but long rides between appointments, many exposures in storms, swimming swollen streams, and only such accommodations as new settlements often afford, sometimes wandering over the wide prairie until morning light, only revived those symptoms of the disease that finally took him from us. In the fall of this year his health so far failed, that at the conference of 1859, he took a superannuated relation, since which time he has been residing at Baldwin City, Kansas, highly respected and most beloved by those who knew him best.......

"Why should our tears in sorrow flow,
When God recalls his own,
And bids them leave a world of woe
For an immortal crown?"
-- J. S. Griffing

[3] At the First Annual Conference, James submitted a claim of $541. He reported receiving only $151 from his charge, leaving him short by $390. That he received most of his "payment for services" in the form of food and other supplies is evident by the careful recording of "gifts" in a pocket memorandum from the period. A few examples are reproduced here:

Dec. 1855
ten or twelve lbs. fresh beef from Mr. O. Moffatt
A chicken from Mrs. Nailor
A bowl of lard from Mrs. Naylor

August 1856
Little pig from Mr. Nailor
A piece of fresh beef & heart &c. from Father Jordan
A rabbit from B. Sailor
Two quails from Nancie
Six qts syrup at ten shillings a gallon from A. Jordan
A Christmas pie from Mrs. [Sarah] Curtis
Four loads of tree top wood from Mr. Harvey Curtis
Jug from Mr. T. Jordan

March 1857
Pickels from Mrs. [Sarah] Curtis
Carrot seed, onion, parsnips & Honey Locust from Sarah C. Young

May 1857
A piece of butter from Mrs. [Sarah] Curtis

June 1857
Little pig from Father Jordan

Aug 21st [1857]
A piece of cheese from Mrs. Greene

September [1857]
Loaf of bread & butter from Mrs. Stepheson
Two pies & corn starch pudding from Mrs. Greene
Apples from Mrs. Rice

The same pocket memorandum mentions the $50 received "at Conference Oct. '56" and suggests that from it, $5 was paid to Dr. Martin, his physician, and that clothes were purchased. For example, "one pair common pants, one common vest, one flannel shirt, one pair thick boots, and one second hand coat."

Pages from Pocket Ledger Recording Food & Supplies Received 1856-1857

[4] "For the first few years, church meetings were held in houses of members and later in various places, including the schoolhouse, Constitution Hall and Museum Hall." First United Methodist Church Anniversary Records, 1980.

[5] Unpublished, undated pocket memorandum written by James S. Griffing. Circa 1881.