John Smith Griffin

BornNovember 23, 1807

DiedFebruary 5, 1899 (aged 91)

Resting placeHillsboro Pioneer Cemetery
45°31′14″N 123°00′21″W / 45.52043°N 123.00582°W

John Smith Griffin


Participant at the Champoeg Meetings
In office 1843–1843
Constituency	Tualatin Plains

Personal details
Born	(1807-11-23)November 23, 1807 Castleton, Vermont, US
Died	February 5, 1899(1899-02-05) (aged 91) Oregon, US
Resting place	Hillsboro Pioneer Cemetery 45°31′14″N 123°00′21″W / 45.52043°N 123.00582°W / 45.52043; -123.00582
Spouse(s)	Desire C. Smith (d. 1884) Lina Harvey Kenyon

John Smith Griffin (1807–1899) was an American missionary in Oregon Country who participated at the Champoeg Meetings that created the Provisional Government of Oregon in 1843. In Oregon he served as a tutor at Fort Vancouver and later organized a church on the Tualatin Plains in the Tualatin Valley.

On November 23, 1807, John Griffin was born in Castleton, Vermont, to parents who immigrated from England.^[1] In New England and Ohio he received an education in both the schools and seminaries.^[1] Griffin was then ordained a minister and sent to Litchfield County, Connecticut. His church, the Congregational Church, then sent him as an unaffiliated missionary to Oregon Country to convert Native Americans.^[1]

Oregon

Griffin arrived in Oregon in 1839 and stayed at the Whitman Mission the first year before moving to the Hudson's Bay Company's Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River.^[1] Staying until 1841, he tutored children of the fort and served as the post's chaplain.^[1] In 1841 he settled on the Tualatin Plains in what is now Washington County, Oregon, where he would establish a church on June 26, 1842.^[2] He had planned on setting up a mission on the east side of the Cascade Mountains, but did not receive funds from the missionary board and instead set up a farm in the Tualatin Valley.^[2] From the time he settled there until 1848 Griffin kept a journal of the arrivals of settlers on the Tualatin Plains.^[1] The church was the first church on the plains there, established at East Tuality Plains.^[3] Members of the church included Joseph L. Meek, George W. Ebbert, Joseph Gale, and Charles Richard McKay among others.^[2] Griffin continued as minister of the congregation until the parishioners removed him in 1845 because of his rigid beliefs, replacing him with Harvey L. Clark.^[3] While living on the plains Griffin set up his own personal jail in order to detain Native Americans who would steal from him.^[2]

In 1843, Griffin attended the meetings at Champoeg on the Willamette River where he opposed the type of resolution introduced at the May third meeting.^[1] Though opposing the type of measure, he did vote for the creation of the Provisional Government in what was a 52-to-50 vote in favor of the formation of a government.^[1]^[4] This temporary government continued until the government of the Oregon Territory was formed in 1849, after the region south of the 49th parallel north became part of the United States.^[1]^[4] In 1848, Griffin took possession of the Oregon Mission Press and began printing The Oregon American and Evangelical Unionist.^[1] In 1851, Griffin invested in the Portland & Valley Plank Road Company, which began building a plank road from Portland to the Tualatin Valley.^[2]

v t e Pioneer history of Oregon (1806–1890)
Topics	American Fur Company Columbian exchange Executive Committee Ferries Hudson's Bay Company Oregon & California Railroad Oregon boundary dispute Oregon Country Oregon Lyceum Oregon missionaries Oregon Spectator Oregon Territory Oregon Trail Oregon Treaty Organic Laws Pacific Fur Company Provisional Government
Events	Treaty of 1818 Russo-American Treaty of 1824 Willamette Cattle Company Champoeg Meetings Star of Oregon Whitman massacre Cayuse War Donation Land Claim Act Holmes v. Ford Rogue River Wars Constitutional Convention Modoc War Great Gale of 1880
Places	Albina Applegate Trail Barlow Road Canemah Champoeg Elliott Cutoff Fort Astoria Fort Dalles Fort Vancouver Fort William French Prairie Linn City Meek Cutoff Methodist Mission Oregon City Oregon Institute Philip Foster Farm Thomas and Ruckle Road Tualatin Academy Whitman Mission Willamette Trading Post
People	George Abernethy Jesse Applegate Ira Babcock Sam Barlow François Blanchet William H. Boring Elijah Bristow Tabitha Brown Matthew Deady Abigail Scott Duniway Thomas Lamb Eliot Philip Foster Peter French Joseph Gale Cornelius Gilliam David Hill Chief Joseph Joseph Kellogg H.A.G. Lee Jason Lee David Thomas Lenox Asa Lovejoy Morton M. McCarver John McLoughlin Joseph Meek Ezra Meeker James D. Miller John Minto Robert Newell Joel Palmer Osborne Russell Sager orphans Levi Scott Eliza Hart Spalding Henry Spalding William Vandevert Elijah White Marcus Whitman Narcissa Whitman Geo. H. Williams Ewing Young
Transportation	Columbia Lot Whitcomb Canemah Colonel Wright Gazelle Oregon Steam Navigation Company
Oregon history	Native peoples history History to 1806 Pioneer history Modern history

John Smith Griffin

Oregon

Family

References

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