robert v. muir
1826-1927

treasurer of the nebraska settlement company

surveyor of the original town of table rock

Robert Valentine Muir was an ambitious, energetic, and multi-talented man whose primary haunts were in Brownville.  There is a great discussion  of his life on his Findagrave.com memorial.  

This page compiles tidbits about him with regard to his Table Rock contacts.

october 3, 1856
​constitution of the nebraska settlement
this is a slide show, you can navigate through the pages.


1857

as treasurer of the nebraska settlement company, muir joins charles giddings (the president of the company) in purchasing the interests of the table rock townsite company

Three men had formed the Table Rock Townsite Company in 1855 -- Robert Furnas, James Hinton, and John Fleming.  Furnas obviously spent his time in Brownville, where he founded and was editor of the Nebraska Advertiser newspaper and was active in civic affairs.  Hinton and Fleming lived in the area near the Rocks, where there they set up a grain mill and a sawmill using the waters of the Nemaha for power.  You can read more about the Townsite Company and the Settlement Company in a paper by Donald Drucker, which you can download.

1857

He keeps aloof from "fancy speculators" in "paper towns," etc.
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June 4, 1857 Nebraska Advertiser (Brownville)
1858 -- Muir surveys Table Rock

From the 1882 biographical book by Andreas:

TABLE ROCK.

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. 

1859
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October 27, 1859 edition of the Nebraska Advertiser (Brownville)

1873-- his mother dies in table rock in october

R. V. Muir's mother, Mary, is buried in the Walnut Grove Cemetery in Brownville.
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May 21, 1874 Nebraska Advertiser (Brownville)
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