John Smith Griffin

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]

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]

Griffin's grave marker

In 1839, Griffin was married in Saint Louis, Missouri, to Desiré C. Smith, who would die in 1884. He then married Lina Harvey Kenyon in Three Oaks, Michigan.[1] Griffin's sister-in-law Rachel Jane Smith married fellow missionary Henry H. Spalding as Spalding's second wife.[5] John Smith Griffin died on February 5, 1899, and is buried at Hillsboro Pioneer Cemetery in Hillsboro, Oregon.[6]