THE HISTORY OF TABLE ROCK FROM THE 1882 HISTORY OF NEBRASKA BY ANDREAS.
The history of Table Rock by Andreas begins--
The town derives its name from a large table rock situated on the high land near the village, but by whom it was given, and when, is not known.
Although the site of Table Rock was chosen and partially surveyed by the Table Rock Town Company in 1855, actual settlement did not begin until 1857, when the Nebraska Settlement Company purchased the interests of the former company.
The settlement company induced about two hundred families to emigrate from Pennsylvania and New York, under the impression that a railroad was about to be built at once from St. Joe westward along the Nemaha Valley to the mountains -- and the company believed it themselves.
The town was surveyed by R. V. Muir, in June, 1858, and its site occupied the south half of Section 32, Town 3, Range 12 east, C. W. Giddings being, at the time, General Superintendent of the settlement company.
In July, 1858, T. Orchard, W. Johnson, R. Dark, W. Dark, I. Burns, I. Lakie, C. W. Giddings, W. M. Chambers, H. N. Gere, R. F. Chatfield, A. Fellers and A. L. Blodgett asked the Court of Commissioners to incorporate Table Rock as a town, and establish a police force, Messrs. Giddings, Chambers, Gere, Lakie and Orchard being proposed as Trustees.
But other days were in store for Table Rock.
Many looked upon the settlement company as a sort of monopoly, not any account to be encouraged. Hard times threw their shadow over the enterprise, and the wet season of 1858 put the finishing touch upon it.
The town derives its name from a large table rock situated on the high land near the village, but by whom it was given, and when, is not known.
Although the site of Table Rock was chosen and partially surveyed by the Table Rock Town Company in 1855, actual settlement did not begin until 1857, when the Nebraska Settlement Company purchased the interests of the former company.
The settlement company induced about two hundred families to emigrate from Pennsylvania and New York, under the impression that a railroad was about to be built at once from St. Joe westward along the Nemaha Valley to the mountains -- and the company believed it themselves.
The town was surveyed by R. V. Muir, in June, 1858, and its site occupied the south half of Section 32, Town 3, Range 12 east, C. W. Giddings being, at the time, General Superintendent of the settlement company.
In July, 1858, T. Orchard, W. Johnson, R. Dark, W. Dark, I. Burns, I. Lakie, C. W. Giddings, W. M. Chambers, H. N. Gere, R. F. Chatfield, A. Fellers and A. L. Blodgett asked the Court of Commissioners to incorporate Table Rock as a town, and establish a police force, Messrs. Giddings, Chambers, Gere, Lakie and Orchard being proposed as Trustees.
But other days were in store for Table Rock.
Many looked upon the settlement company as a sort of monopoly, not any account to be encouraged. Hard times threw their shadow over the enterprise, and the wet season of 1858 put the finishing touch upon it.
Andreas then inserted a history of Table Rock written by the man who has been called its founder, C. W. Giddings:
Elder C. W. Giddings has furnished the following items, which cover the early history of Table Rock:
"The season of 1858 commenced wet; the rains continued, increasing until about the 1st of August, when the waters suddenly rose in the night several feet above the banks of the streams. The valley was inundated, and the cultivated lands, being on the bottoms, and the cabins of the settlers on the banks of the streams, much damage was done and great suffering prevailed.
This wet season was followed by various forms of bilious diseases, of which the chills and fever was the most formidable, and the people, especially those from the East, had the 'blues,' making pertinent the prayer of the Rev. J. M. Chivington, at the first quarterly meeting he held in Table Rock --- 'that the Lord would send the people here and make them so poor that they could not get away.'
So greatly discouraged were the settlers generally, that, at the end of the year 1858, out of 150 families who had, during the eighteen months preceding, came to make themselves homes in Table Rock and vicinity, but fifteen families remained.
These trials of our faith in the capabilities of this new country brought the remaining settlers generally to the sober realities of developing the country by their own industry and enterprise; and, notwithstanding the reverses, they have rapidly advanced in numbers till the precinct is the most numerous in the county.
"Table Rock claims the honor of organizing the first church in the county. This was done in l857,by Rev. C. V. Amold, then a member of the Wyoming Conference, Pennsylvania, and consisted of forty members. Our Sunday school was organized the same year, and is probably the oldest in the county.
"The meetings for public worship, the meetings of the literary society, and all other public gatherings, were held at the house of C. W. Giddings for nearly four years, and such was the zeal manifested in these gatherings that some kind of a meeting was held nearly every night in the week.
"A good, substantial stone schoolhouse was built in 1881-62, and the public meetings were then removed to the schoolhouse. This building was, at the time of its erection, the largest and best schoolhouse in Southern Nebraska, and probably the best in the State. It still remains as a monument of the enterprise and zeal of the first settlers, though it has been superseded in its original uses by a much better house.
"As many came to Table Rock who did not remain long enough to become settlers, we shall omit their names in this record, it being desirable to perpetuate the memory of those who may be regarded as real settlers of this vicinity. We make honorable mention of H. N. Gere, John Fleming, A. E. Haywood, H. Billings, Andrew Fellers, William Fellers, C. V. Dimond, R. H. Samson, Elisha Mott, John Morley, J. Williams, Robert Nesbitt, C. L. Griffing, Joseph Griffing, William Smith, John A. Jones, Hamilton Cooper, Samuel Taylor, Richard Hogan, W. Hogan, Robert Taylor, James Cotter, H. S. Jenkins, Livingston G. Jenkins, John C. Wood, Charles Wood, Dwight Fowler, William McNeal, J. Dobson, William Chambers, Julius Tyler, M. J. Mumford, William Arnett, George McMahon, Samuel McMahon, A. Armstrong, E. Marker and Clark Alexander. These all settled here before the fall of 1858, nearly all having families, who bravely and nobly bore the hardships and endured the toils of frontier life.
"A little later came C. H. Lane, James Purcell, Richard Linn, John Linn, S. T. Linn, J. L. Linn, W. S. Linn, T. A. Linn, William Linn, E. A. Hanson, John Taylor, M. H. Marble, J. Allison, G. W. J. Dare, John Blacklaw and Israel Cummings; and still later, a host of others, too numerous to mention.
"The first frame house, the first barn, the first frame bridge, the first brick-kiln, the first brick house and the first cistern in the county were built in or near Table Rock.
"The Table Rock Commissioners' District has been represented in the Board of County Commissioners by the following-named gentlemen, in the order in which they are here recounted: H. N. Gere, Hiram Billings, C. W. Giddings, Nicholas Steinauer, Joseph Pepoon and John Blacklaw.
"Five years of our history, we have had no legal representative in the Commissioners' Court of Pawnee County; the gentleman acting in that capacity living out of the district, and having been forced upon us by a domineering majority in defiance of the law governing the case. Of the county officers (not the Commissioners), five have been elected, viz.: John Fleming, County Clerk; Julius Tyler, County Clerk; S. H. Cummings, County Treasurer; William Ballance, County Superintendent of Public Schools; and O. D. Howe, County Surveyor.
"Julius Tyler was our first school-teacher, and Miss F. C. Giddings, now Mrs. Norris, the second.
"H. N. Gere was our first Sunday School Superintendent, and M. J. Mumford our second.
"Regular religious services were commenced on the first Sabbath in June, and were conducted alternately by G. L Griffing, Gabriel Westfall and C. W. Giddings for nearly one year, when a petition was sent to the Kansas and Nebraska Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, then in session at Omaha, praying for the organization of a circuit in Pawnee County, and embracing the western tier of precincts in Richardson County, and the appointment of a preacher to the same. In answer to this petition, Table Rock Circuit was organized, and Rev. Mr. Miner placed in charge. he cam around once, and disappeared to return no more. We have, however, been supplied by the Bishop, or the Presiding Elder in charge of the work, every year since, and out of the small beginning has grown Pawnee City Station, Cincinnati, Humboldt and Table Rock, and a circuit in the western part of the county -- of what name we are ignorant. We would not omit to mention the names of men who have done us good service in sustaining the moral and religious interests of the community, such as J. W. Taylor, A. G. White, Mr. Blackburn, Isaac Burns, Hiram Burch, Martin Pritchard, L. W. Smith, T. J. Wood and J. W. Adair.
"The following firms have carried on the mercantile business in Table Rock: Wood & Moore, H. Strickler & Brother, Lane & Cooper, Osmyn Griffing, Curtis Peavy & Co. (G. L. Griffing being the other member of the firm) and Hurlburt & C. H. Norris. In the early settlement of the county, the business in merchandising was not lucrative, and the purchasers made more out of the business than the merchants.
"During the first three years of our history, our market was in the towns on the banks of the Missouri River. The streams no being bridged, the hauling of our surplus produce was attended with great inconvenience and expense, greatly discouraging to the farming interests of the Rocky Mountains and opening of the freighting business westward gave a new impetus to the farming interests of the settlements, by furnishing a reading paying home market for everything we could produce, and the day of prosperity dawned upon us like the shining of a clear sun after a long and dreary storm. This continued till the opening of the Union Pacific road, when the price of freight on that road rendered it impossible for our freighters to compete with it, and prices went down to almost no sales. In the freighting business, which gave to the farming interests of our county so much income, Table Rock has the honor of opening the first road west, and of sending the first load of grain to Fort Kearney. This was done by C. W. Giddings, in 1859. The load consisted of eighty bushels of oats.
"In 1871-72, the A. & N. Railroad Company projected and built their road along the valley of the Nemaha, giving to this precinct all the advantages of a railroad communication with the rest of the world, and the prospect of being the largest and most business town in the county.
"The two parties in politics were nearly equally divided in the early settlement of the Territory, the Democrats having the majority; but the coming of about one hundred and fifty voters under the auspices of the new settlement gave the majority to the Republicans, secured the election of Daily, to Congress and gave to them an advantage they have been able to hold.
"G. L. Griffing has been twice elected to represent the people in the Nebraska Legislature, he being the only man residing in Table Rock Precinct who has been this honored."
Elder C. W. Giddings has furnished the following items, which cover the early history of Table Rock:
"The season of 1858 commenced wet; the rains continued, increasing until about the 1st of August, when the waters suddenly rose in the night several feet above the banks of the streams. The valley was inundated, and the cultivated lands, being on the bottoms, and the cabins of the settlers on the banks of the streams, much damage was done and great suffering prevailed.
This wet season was followed by various forms of bilious diseases, of which the chills and fever was the most formidable, and the people, especially those from the East, had the 'blues,' making pertinent the prayer of the Rev. J. M. Chivington, at the first quarterly meeting he held in Table Rock --- 'that the Lord would send the people here and make them so poor that they could not get away.'
So greatly discouraged were the settlers generally, that, at the end of the year 1858, out of 150 families who had, during the eighteen months preceding, came to make themselves homes in Table Rock and vicinity, but fifteen families remained.
These trials of our faith in the capabilities of this new country brought the remaining settlers generally to the sober realities of developing the country by their own industry and enterprise; and, notwithstanding the reverses, they have rapidly advanced in numbers till the precinct is the most numerous in the county.
"Table Rock claims the honor of organizing the first church in the county. This was done in l857,by Rev. C. V. Amold, then a member of the Wyoming Conference, Pennsylvania, and consisted of forty members. Our Sunday school was organized the same year, and is probably the oldest in the county.
"The meetings for public worship, the meetings of the literary society, and all other public gatherings, were held at the house of C. W. Giddings for nearly four years, and such was the zeal manifested in these gatherings that some kind of a meeting was held nearly every night in the week.
"A good, substantial stone schoolhouse was built in 1881-62, and the public meetings were then removed to the schoolhouse. This building was, at the time of its erection, the largest and best schoolhouse in Southern Nebraska, and probably the best in the State. It still remains as a monument of the enterprise and zeal of the first settlers, though it has been superseded in its original uses by a much better house.
"As many came to Table Rock who did not remain long enough to become settlers, we shall omit their names in this record, it being desirable to perpetuate the memory of those who may be regarded as real settlers of this vicinity. We make honorable mention of H. N. Gere, John Fleming, A. E. Haywood, H. Billings, Andrew Fellers, William Fellers, C. V. Dimond, R. H. Samson, Elisha Mott, John Morley, J. Williams, Robert Nesbitt, C. L. Griffing, Joseph Griffing, William Smith, John A. Jones, Hamilton Cooper, Samuel Taylor, Richard Hogan, W. Hogan, Robert Taylor, James Cotter, H. S. Jenkins, Livingston G. Jenkins, John C. Wood, Charles Wood, Dwight Fowler, William McNeal, J. Dobson, William Chambers, Julius Tyler, M. J. Mumford, William Arnett, George McMahon, Samuel McMahon, A. Armstrong, E. Marker and Clark Alexander. These all settled here before the fall of 1858, nearly all having families, who bravely and nobly bore the hardships and endured the toils of frontier life.
"A little later came C. H. Lane, James Purcell, Richard Linn, John Linn, S. T. Linn, J. L. Linn, W. S. Linn, T. A. Linn, William Linn, E. A. Hanson, John Taylor, M. H. Marble, J. Allison, G. W. J. Dare, John Blacklaw and Israel Cummings; and still later, a host of others, too numerous to mention.
"The first frame house, the first barn, the first frame bridge, the first brick-kiln, the first brick house and the first cistern in the county were built in or near Table Rock.
"The Table Rock Commissioners' District has been represented in the Board of County Commissioners by the following-named gentlemen, in the order in which they are here recounted: H. N. Gere, Hiram Billings, C. W. Giddings, Nicholas Steinauer, Joseph Pepoon and John Blacklaw.
"Five years of our history, we have had no legal representative in the Commissioners' Court of Pawnee County; the gentleman acting in that capacity living out of the district, and having been forced upon us by a domineering majority in defiance of the law governing the case. Of the county officers (not the Commissioners), five have been elected, viz.: John Fleming, County Clerk; Julius Tyler, County Clerk; S. H. Cummings, County Treasurer; William Ballance, County Superintendent of Public Schools; and O. D. Howe, County Surveyor.
"Julius Tyler was our first school-teacher, and Miss F. C. Giddings, now Mrs. Norris, the second.
"H. N. Gere was our first Sunday School Superintendent, and M. J. Mumford our second.
"Regular religious services were commenced on the first Sabbath in June, and were conducted alternately by G. L Griffing, Gabriel Westfall and C. W. Giddings for nearly one year, when a petition was sent to the Kansas and Nebraska Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, then in session at Omaha, praying for the organization of a circuit in Pawnee County, and embracing the western tier of precincts in Richardson County, and the appointment of a preacher to the same. In answer to this petition, Table Rock Circuit was organized, and Rev. Mr. Miner placed in charge. he cam around once, and disappeared to return no more. We have, however, been supplied by the Bishop, or the Presiding Elder in charge of the work, every year since, and out of the small beginning has grown Pawnee City Station, Cincinnati, Humboldt and Table Rock, and a circuit in the western part of the county -- of what name we are ignorant. We would not omit to mention the names of men who have done us good service in sustaining the moral and religious interests of the community, such as J. W. Taylor, A. G. White, Mr. Blackburn, Isaac Burns, Hiram Burch, Martin Pritchard, L. W. Smith, T. J. Wood and J. W. Adair.
"The following firms have carried on the mercantile business in Table Rock: Wood & Moore, H. Strickler & Brother, Lane & Cooper, Osmyn Griffing, Curtis Peavy & Co. (G. L. Griffing being the other member of the firm) and Hurlburt & C. H. Norris. In the early settlement of the county, the business in merchandising was not lucrative, and the purchasers made more out of the business than the merchants.
"During the first three years of our history, our market was in the towns on the banks of the Missouri River. The streams no being bridged, the hauling of our surplus produce was attended with great inconvenience and expense, greatly discouraging to the farming interests of the Rocky Mountains and opening of the freighting business westward gave a new impetus to the farming interests of the settlements, by furnishing a reading paying home market for everything we could produce, and the day of prosperity dawned upon us like the shining of a clear sun after a long and dreary storm. This continued till the opening of the Union Pacific road, when the price of freight on that road rendered it impossible for our freighters to compete with it, and prices went down to almost no sales. In the freighting business, which gave to the farming interests of our county so much income, Table Rock has the honor of opening the first road west, and of sending the first load of grain to Fort Kearney. This was done by C. W. Giddings, in 1859. The load consisted of eighty bushels of oats.
"In 1871-72, the A. & N. Railroad Company projected and built their road along the valley of the Nemaha, giving to this precinct all the advantages of a railroad communication with the rest of the world, and the prospect of being the largest and most business town in the county.
"The two parties in politics were nearly equally divided in the early settlement of the Territory, the Democrats having the majority; but the coming of about one hundred and fifty voters under the auspices of the new settlement gave the majority to the Republicans, secured the election of Daily, to Congress and gave to them an advantage they have been able to hold.
"G. L. Griffing has been twice elected to represent the people in the Nebraska Legislature, he being the only man residing in Table Rock Precinct who has been this honored."
Andreas then concluded the history:
Table Rock felt a reviving influence when the A. & N. road was built through it and the northeastern corner of Pawnee County. The railroad built a hotel, known as the Abell House, and several business houses commenced to drive a thriving trade.
Quite a settlement had grown up by the time (1881) that the Wymore Extension of the Republican Valley road was built.
At times, it seemed as if the upper town would be deserted.
The low land, however, was so subject to floods that the citizens came to the conclusion that the old site was the best, and, two years ago [in 1880], a paper was extensively signed by them, agreeing to remove their buildings and their business interests to the upper town. All except a few houses did so.
Table Rock -- the upper and lower towns -- now number about four hundred people. It contains a good district school, graded, attended by 100 pupils, and in charge of S. A. Hoover. Father August Rausch has charge of a Catholic mission, and Rev. R. J. Randall is Pastor of a flourishing Methodist Episcopal Church.
The Odd Fellows Lodge, No. ee, is the only secret society, and was chartered July 4, 1872. C. H. Norris, a leading merchant of the county, is Noble Grand.
Mrs. E. V. Lindsly runs the hotel which accommodates the upper town.
John Blacklaw operates a water-power grist-mill, which has three run of buhrs.
Otherwise, the business of the place is represented by three general stores, two hardware, two drug, one restaurant, two blacksmith shops, one wagon shop, two livery stables, one lumber-yard, a grocery store and a meat-market.
Table Rock felt a reviving influence when the A. & N. road was built through it and the northeastern corner of Pawnee County. The railroad built a hotel, known as the Abell House, and several business houses commenced to drive a thriving trade.
Quite a settlement had grown up by the time (1881) that the Wymore Extension of the Republican Valley road was built.
At times, it seemed as if the upper town would be deserted.
The low land, however, was so subject to floods that the citizens came to the conclusion that the old site was the best, and, two years ago [in 1880], a paper was extensively signed by them, agreeing to remove their buildings and their business interests to the upper town. All except a few houses did so.
Table Rock -- the upper and lower towns -- now number about four hundred people. It contains a good district school, graded, attended by 100 pupils, and in charge of S. A. Hoover. Father August Rausch has charge of a Catholic mission, and Rev. R. J. Randall is Pastor of a flourishing Methodist Episcopal Church.
The Odd Fellows Lodge, No. ee, is the only secret society, and was chartered July 4, 1872. C. H. Norris, a leading merchant of the county, is Noble Grand.
Mrs. E. V. Lindsly runs the hotel which accommodates the upper town.
John Blacklaw operates a water-power grist-mill, which has three run of buhrs.
Otherwise, the business of the place is represented by three general stores, two hardware, two drug, one restaurant, two blacksmith shops, one wagon shop, two livery stables, one lumber-yard, a grocery store and a meat-market.