Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 2).djvu/677

Rh was then regarded as in the far west. He reached the city in April, 181G, assembled a small congre- gation, and became the pioneer missionary of the Presbyterian church to the country west of the Mississippi. In 1816 Mr. Giddings organized a Presbyterian church at Bellevue settlement, eighty miles "southwest of St. Louis, and during the next ten years formed eleven other congregations — iive in Missouri, and six in Illinois. In the spring of 1822 he explored Nebraska and Kansas territories, preparatory to estaVjlishing missions among the Indians. On this tour of many weeks, without white companions, and hundreds of miles from any white settlement, he visited several Indian nations, held councils with their chiefs, and was received with hospitality. In 1826 Mr. Giddings was in- stalled pastor of the 1st Presbyterian church in St. Louis. He was an active member of the first Bible, Sunday-school, and tract societies of Missouri, and of the first colonization society in that state.

GIFFORD, Archer, lawyer, b. in Newark, N. J., in 1797 ; d. there, 12 May, 1859. He was graduated at Princeton in 1814, was admitted to the bar in 1818, and began to practise in his native town, where he continued to reside till his death. He was appointed by President Jackson collector of customs for the port of Newark in 1836, and held this office during the following twelve years, without suffering it to interfere materially with an extensive practice. He published a " Digest of the Statutory and Consti- tutional Constructions delivered in the Supreme Court and Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey " (1852), " Unity of the Liturgy," and con- tributed to periodical literature.

GIFFORD, Robert Swain, artist, b. in Nau- slion, Mass., 28 Dec, 1840. He studied under Albert Van Beest, the Dutch marine painter, opened a studio in Boston in 1864, and resided there till he settled permanently in New York, in 1866. He was elected an associate of the National academy in 1867, and an academician in 1878. He made an extensive sketching tour in Oregon and California in 1869, and furnished views in these states to " Picturesque America " (1872-'3). He went to Eu- rope in 1870. spent 1874 in Algiers and the Great Desert, and in 1875 made a sketching tour in Brit- tany and southern France. He has been a mem- ber of the American society of painters in water- colors since its organization in 1866, is a member of the New York etching club, the British society of painter-etchers, the Artist's fund society, and the Society of American artists. He is best known through his pictures of oriental life. Among his oil-paintings ai"e " Scene at Manchester, Cape Ann " (1867) ; " Mount Hood " (1870) ; " Halting for Wa- ter " and " Passenger Boats on the Nile" (1874); " The Rossetti Garden " (1875) ; " The Mosque of Mahommed Ali," which was awarded a medal at the Centennial (1876) ; " The Borders of the Desert," " New England Cedars " (1877) ; " Salt Boats at Dartmouth." exhibited at the Paris salon (1878). His " Deserted Whaler," in the water-color exhi- bition (1867), excited much favorable comment. Other water-colors by his hand are " Day pn the Sea-Shore " (1869) ; " Block House at« Eastport " (1874); "Venetian Companions" (1876); "The Oasis of Filiach, Algeria " (1877). His recent works include " Nonquitt ClifE" (1882); "New Zaanda- am " (1883) ; " The Shores of Buzzard Bay," and " Near the Coast." for which he was awarded $2,500 in the First prize fund exhibition of the American art association (1885) ; and " Autumn in New Eng- land " (1886). — His wife, Frances Eliot, artist, b. in New Bedford, Mass., 1844, received her art edu- cation at the Cooper institute, New York city, and under Samuel Gerry, in Boston. She has made a specialty of painting birds with landscapes, and has contributed illustrations to the magazines.

GIFFORD, Saudford Robinson, painter, b. in Greenfield, Saratoga co., N. Y., 10 July, 1823 ; d. in New York, 29 Aug., 1880. He studied at Brown in 1842-'4, and, removing to New York in 1845, was a pnpil in perspective, drawing, and anat- omy in the studio of John Rubens Smith, also attending lectures on anatomy. At this time he began to paint portraits. In 1846 he made a pedestrian tour in the Catskill mountains, and among the Berkshire hills, where his attention was directed for the first time to landscapes. In 1851 he was elected an associate and three years later a member of the National academy. In 1855-'7 he studied in Europe. When the civil war began, he joined the 7th New York regiment, and some sketches of bivouac and battle are remi- niscences of his six months' experience in the army. During the next ten years he visited Colo- rado, California, Utah, Oregon, British Columbia, and the Rocky mountains. He was a member of the Century and Union league clubs, and his asso- ciates were attached to him for qualities that he possessed distinct from his merits as an artist. At a meeting of the Century club, held the day after his death, John F. Weir delivered an address on his life and character ; Worthington Whittredge, another entitled " Reminiscences of Gifford " ; Jer- vis McEntee, one on " Giflford, the Friend, the Art- ist, the Man " ; and poems were read by Edmund C, Stedman and Richard H. Stoddard. Mr. Gifford's paintings are remarkable for tenderness of tone and brilliancy of color. His pictures are the interpreta- tion of the profounder sentiments of nature rather than of her superficial aspects. His most success- ful works are " Baltimore in 1862 " (1862) ; " Morn- ing in the Adirondacks" (1867); "Mount Mans- field" (1869); "San Giorgio, Venice" (1870); "Tivoli" (1871); "Fishing-Boats " (1873); " Pal- lanza," " Sunset on the Sweet Water, Wyoming," "Venetian Sails" (1874); "At Beni-Hassan " and " Near Palermo " (1876) ; " Leander's Tower," " Sunset on the Hudson," and " Fire Island Beach " (1877); and "Sunset, Bay of New York" (1878). At the Centennial of 1876 Mr. Gifford was com- mended for his landscape paintings. His " San Giorgio," "Venice," and "Mount Renier " were exhibited at the Paris salon (1878).

GIGER, George Musgrave, clergyman, b. in Philadelphia, Pa., 6 June, 1822; d. there, 11 Oct., 1865. He was graduated at Princeton in 1841, studied theology there, and in 1860 was ordained by the New Brunswick presbytery. He was then ap- pointed tutor in Princeton college, elected adjunct professor of Greek in 1846, and professor of Latin in 1854. Failing health compelled his resignation of this chair in 1865. Prof. Giger expended much time and effort for the education of the negroes, to whom he preached regularly in Witherspoon church at Princeton. He bequeathed his books and thirty thousand dollars to that college.

GlGNOUX, Francois Regis, landscape painter, b. in Lyons, France, in 1816 ; d. in Paris, 6 Aug., 1882. He was educated at Fribourg, and studied art in the Academy of St. Pierre, at Lyons. Later he entered the School of fine arts at Paris, and was also a pupil of Paul Delaroche. In 1844 he removed to the United States and opened a studio in Brooklyn, N. Y, In 1851 he was elected a member of the Academy of design, and was the first president of the Brooklyn art academy. In 1870 he returned to France, where he resided until his death. The best known of his landscapes