BIOGRAPHY: Richard W. GITTINGS, Cambria County, PA 

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From Wiley, Samuel T., ed. Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Cambria 
County, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Union Publishing Co., 1896, p. 382-3
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RICHARD W. GITTINGS, substantial farmer of Cambria township, Cambria county, 
Pennsylvania, and a son of William, Jr., and Mary (Morris), Cambria, was born in 
Cambria township, May 14, 1838.
     His grandfather, William S. Gittings, was a native of North Wales, who 
brought his family to America in 1819, and located in Georgetown, Virginia, 
where he resided for three years.
     In 1822 he removed to Ebensburg, and soon after located on a farm, four 
miles northwest of Ebensburg, in Conemaugh township. Here he bought about four 
hundred acres of woodland and cleared a farm, following farming the rest of his 
life. In 1869 he died on his farm, aged eighty-eight years. He was one of the 
early settlers of that part of the township, and an upright, industrious man.
     Speaking of the longevity of William Gittings, the grandfather, it is said 
that the great-grandfather, William Gittings, Sr., a farmer of North Wales, 
lived to be one hundred and two and a half years old.
     William Gittings (2d) had a family consisting of four sons and five 
daughters, six of whom were born in Wales.
     William, father of Richard W., was the oldest child, and was born in Wales. 
Andrew, Christopher, Sarah, married to Evan R. Evans; Margharetta, married to 
John Prosser of Pittsburg, Jane, married to David Prosser, late of Pittsburg, 
and Ann, are dead. Those living are: Eliza, wife of John Price, of Pittsburg, 
Pennsylvania, and Richard.
     William Gittings (3d), father of our subject, was born in North Wales, May 
29, 1806, and died in Cambria township, January 4, 1870. He was a farmer and a 
militiaman, thus showing his loyalty to his adopted country. He was a member of 
the Congregational Methodist church, and a whig, later a republican. His first 
wife was Mary Morris, a daughter of Richard Morris, of the same township, and 
they had a family of five children, one son and four daughters. In the order of 
birth they are as follows: Jane, widow of Thomas D. Lewis, and now a resident of 
Ebensburg, Pennsylvania; Richard W., our subject; Eliza, wife of William 
Griffith, of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania; Mary, wife of William D. Shumefelt, of 
Kane, McKean county, Pennsylvania, and Ann, who died in 1872.
     Richard W. Gittings was brought up on the farm, and educated in the common 
schools of the township. He has followed farming all his life, and has always 
lived on the farm owned by his father, which he purchased after his father's 
death. This farm contains two hundred and twenty-five acres, underlaid with coal 
and is in good state of cultivation. Mr. Gittings has always been a careful 
husbandman, and an honor to the men who have followed the occupation designated 
by George Washington as, “of all others the most delightful.” Futhermore he 
says, “It is honorable, it is amusing, and with judicious management, it is 
profitable.” In addition to the old homestead, Mr. Gittings owns, in connection 
with David R. Edwards, one hundred acres of timber and coal land in Barr 
township.
     Our subject is a member of the Welsh Congregational church; is a staunch 
republican, and has held some local offices, and in   the discharge of all his 
duties, both public and private, he has been earnest and honest. Mr. Gittings is 
a Welshman, you remember. The nursery rhyme, “Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a 
thief,” surely contains an error; for was a Welshman ever a thief? There must be 
very few instances in which a Simon pure Taffy was not an honest man.
     Mr. Gittings has his fraternal connections with Beulah Lodge, No. 312, F. 
and A M., of Ebensburg, Pennsylvania, and Highland Lodge, No. 428, I. O. O. F., 
of Ebensburg, of which he is a past grand master.
     March 27, 1868, he married Miss Mary Edwards, daughter of Robert E. 
Edwards, of Cambria township, by whom he had ten children: Eliza, was married to 
J. A. Young, of Buffinton township, Indiana county, Pennsylvania; William, is a 
carpenter at Blairsville; Robert, Laura, Mary Emma, David, Henrietta, Herschel, 
and Ethel May, are at home. Martha Ellen, the ninth child, is dead.