Ohio History Journal

ruary 3, 1842. He was brought up on the farm, attending district school winters. He taught school in Iowa in the spring of 1859, and in Missouri in the fall and winter of 1859 and 60. He entered Oberlin College in January, 1861, but his college course, like that of many other patriotic boys, was cut short by his enlistment in Company C., 7th O. V. I., in April, 1861. Failing health, however, prevented a long ser- vice in the army, and he returned to College, remaining there during the years 1862, '63 and '64, paying his expenses by teaching school during the vacation months. In 1864 he became one of the pro- prietors of the Oberlin Business College; established and took charge of a business college at Hillsdale, Michigan, in 1866. In

100        Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

1879 to 1883; since which time he was profitably engaged in the busi-

ness of real estate and farming. When some two or three years ago,

the Toledo and Indiana Electric Line was organized, Mr. Griffin was

elected president, and up to the time of his death devoted his entire

time to its construction.  Mr. Griffin was an ardent Republican, and

was the choice of a large number of Toledoans for Congress, three times

losing the nomination to Congressman James Southard.      He served

with distinction in the Ohio Legislature, being elected in 1887, on the

Republican ticket; member of the 68th General Assembly, by a majority

of five hundred, reelected in 1889 by twice that majority; elected for the

third time in 1891 by over fifteen hundred majority; and elected for

a fourth term in 1893 by a majority of four thousand. He was elected to

the 74th General Assembly, in which he championed the legislative

enactment promoting the Ohio Centennial, which was to have been held

at Toledo. He displayed great energy and diplomacy in carrying the

bill through in spite of most determined opposition. The bill was after-

ward declared inoperative by the Supreme Court.

Mr. Griffin was, from its early days, a most stanch, active and

effective member and friend of The Ohio State Archaeological and His-

torical Society. At the annual meetings on March 7, 1890, and February

18, 1891, he personally participated, and at the dinner on each of those

occasions delivered an eloquent address upon the "History of the Mau-

mee Valley." In 1891, Governor James Campbell appointed him a trustee

of the Society. He served until 1894, when he was re-appointed by

Governor William McKinley, serving until 1897 when he was again re-ap-

pointed by Governor Asa Bushnell, and at the expiration of that term, he

was re-appointed in February, 1900, by Governor George K. Nash, to

serve until February, 1903. He was therefore in continuous service, as

trustee by appointment, for twelve years, the longest service of that kind,

by any trustee. On the visit of the Trustees of the Society with the Ameri-

canists to Fort Ancient, of which we give an account in this number,

Mr. Griffin was present, and took a lively interest in the events of the

day, and said to the writer of these lines that he proposed from then

on to give the Society much of his attention and effort. Mr. Griffin was an

indefatigable worker in everything that he undertook. He was a man of

strong convictions and courageous action. He was an ardent friend,

and a fearless foe. He was a ready speaker, an expert parliamentarian,

and a skilled and shrewd debater. Several times during the history of the

Society, as the writer can personally testify, Mr. Griffin was its champion

on the floor of the legislature, and more than once was the leader in

carrying through measures promotive of the progress and efficiency of

The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society. Well does the

writer remember a particular incident in the general assembly of one of

the early 90's. It was an evenng session, the temper of the house was one

of restlessness and impatience. A bill in the interest of the Society was

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under discussion; the tide was against the enactment on the ground

that the Society did not merit the State's aid. Mr. Griffin hastily summoned

the writer to the cloak-room of the House and asked a full explanation of

the situation. It was given. Mr. Griffin returned to the floor and in a

most vigorous argument and enthusiastic plea changed the prevailing senti-

ment and carried the bill through. He was the friend of the Society and

deserves the kindliest thought and most grateful memory of its members.

To the surviving wife, son Mark and daughter Ethel of Toledo

and daughter Mrs. N. Coe Stewart, of Worcester, Mass., we extend the

sympathy and well wishes of the members of the Ohio State Archaeo-

logical and Historical Society.

 

 

 

OHIO AND THE WESTERN RESERVE.

Mr. Alfred Mathews, recently made honorary member of the Ohio

State Archaeological and Historical Society, has given the public one of

the most valuable little books on Ohio history that has been issued

within recent times. The book bears the title Ohio and her Western

Reserve, with a story of three states, the states being Connecticut,

Pennsylvania and Ohio. Mr. Mathews is a tireless student of history.

He has apparently exhausted the subject of his volume. With great

detail, but always in a delightful and polished style he gives the history

of the Connecticut colony, its claim of a wide strip of territory across

Pennsylvania and the northern part of Ohio into Michigan and Indiana.

His chapter on Wyoming gives the most complete and satisfactory his-

tory of the Connecticut settlement at Wyoming, the tragic history of

that settlement, the battle and massacre of Wyoming, that we have ever

seen in print. It will be recalled that this settlement by the Connecticut

colonists at Wyoming was the first pioneer settlement of the Connecti-

cut people within the boundary of Penn's province on the Susquehanna

river, and within the territory claimed by Connecticut, and was made

largely to preempt and establish by right of possession the title of Connecti-

cut to that western extension. "It represented the first overt act of an

inter-colonial intrusion; the initial movement of that persistent, general,

systematic invasion which resulted in the settlement of Wyoming and the

establishment of a Connecticut government on Pennsylvania soil; a de-

termined effort to dismember the state and to create another, to be

carved from the territory of Pennsylvania." Wyoming was founded by

what was known as the Connecticut-Susquehanna company, which made

its settlement with about two hundred Connecticut men about a mile

above the site of Wilkesbarre in the Wyoming valley in the early spring

of 1762. As early as 1754 the company sent agents to Albany to purchase

from the Indians of the Six Nations the land in the Wyoming Valley.

This was all done under the protest of the Pennsylvanians and their