Biographies
M. W. GRIFFIN
Among
the stanch hearted ones who made the perilous water journey to California,
crossing the Isthmus in canoes pushed by native boatmen and concluding their
journey mule-back toward the landing of the steamer Isthmus, Captain Harris
commanding, which was to be the means of transportation in the last stage of an
adventuresome journey, were Mr. and Mrs. M. W. Griffin, descendants of old
families in their native Ireland. While at college Mr. Griffin had become
interested in America and had suddenly changed his life plans and set sail for
New Orleans, where he identified himself with the coffee and cotton business.
His marriage to his childhood playmate followed soon after her arrival in New
Orleans. Mrs. Griffin was a member of the famous Fitzgerald and McDonnell
families, the latter one of the most ancient in the west of Ireland. Though
their life was care free and happy, they heard and responded to the call of the
Golden West. With them were twelve young Kentuckians who were their companions
on the dangerous Chagres river trip, with its yelling
and fighting native boatmen. Becoming faint-hearted as they approached the
steamer, tossing on the bosom of the Pacific, they besought the Griffins to
return with them to home and friends. But this was in vain, for Marshall's
great discovery, coupled with tales of the sunny land where flowers never die,
made them ignore the dangers of the deep. So, with a tear for their friends and
a smile for the future, they embarked on the Isthmus. For a time all went well,
but suddenly the ship sprung a leak and twenty-four hours of peril followed;
but this was soon forgotten under the lure of the land of the Golden West, and
the steamer sailed through the Golden Gate April 16, 1853. After a year's
residence in San Francisco the Griffins stopped at what of Sacramento then
existed and then pushed on to the gold mines, where all had faith that
"Gold was got in
pan and pot,
Soup-tureen or ladle,
Basket, bird-cage or
what not,
Even to a
cradle."
In the spring of 1869
they located permanently in Sacramento, which then contained few imposing
buildings. A stately capitol charmed the eye, but the glory of the its park was wanting. Historic Sutter Fort, a ruin, was
then far out in the country; today, a spot both interesting and sacred, it is
surrounded by beautiful homes. Instead of the majestic Cathedral with its
cross-tipped spire, was old St. Rose, several feet below the grade, and in
admiring the splendid government building which occupies the old St. Rose
location, the little low postoffice at Fourth and K
streets seems but a dream.
Mining
interests both in California and Nevada always held Mr. Griffin's attention,
for he was a true pioneer, but he engaged for some years in the hotel business
in Placer and Eldorado counties and became a
prominent and public-spirited citizen of that section. On settling in
Sacramento, he gave up his hotel interests and identified himself with the
shipping department of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. His two elder
sons, John F. and Edward Emmett Griffin, rarely gifted young men, employed in
the San Francisco offices of the same company, died in young manhood, and their
passing proved his own death blow. Though he was in the midst of his labors and
of his usefulness, he was unable to rally from the shock that he had received,
and his life went out on a February day in 1894. Surviving him are Mrs. M.
(Fitzgerald) Griffin, an honored mother, her son Franklin A. Griffin, a
well-known lawyer, accomplished musician, executive secretary to Governor Hiram
W. Johnson and past president of Stanford Parlor, N. S. G. W.; Miss Mary G.
Griffin, teacher and talented musician; and Miss Lizzie M. Griffin,
vice-principal of the Mary J. Watson grammar school, composer and organist of
the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament. One grandson, Gerald Griffin, notary
public for San Francisco and prominent in real-estate circles, lives in that
city.
Transcribed by Sally Kaleta.
Source: Willis,
William L., History of Sacramento County,
California, Pages 989-991. Historic Record Company,
© 2006 Sally Kaleta.