August 9, 1922

(Copied from a newspaper article in a scrap book Mom had)

His Death Brings to Light a Story Of Adventure — Aged Man Who Eeked Out Rare Living on Hog Farm in San Antonio Had Once Been the Friend of Roosevelt.

Those who invested some years ago in ‘The Griffin Gold Mine’ will be interested in the following story of the life and adventures of the promoter, who lived in Tioga County in his youth. The story is from the San Antonio Light of July 19th.

The death of Merrit A. Griffin, aged 75 years, a hog raiser on his little farm, near San Antonio, Texas, brought to light a career of adventure known previously to only a few intimates. The aged man whose last days were spent in comparative poverty once had made a quarter million dollars as a railroad contractor; he had once owned and operated a silver and gold mine in Mexico worth a million dollars; he had been the intimate in days gone by of James J. Hill, Theodore Roosevelt, Buffalo Bill Cody and Frederick Weverhouser, the Northwest’s lumber king. After his adventure in Mexico with his gold and silver mine Griffin, marked for death by bandits, came to San Antonio penniless, but with a brave spirit, and at the age of 65 started over again with his hog ranch. Even then he met with reverses for at one time his hogs were all swept away by hog cholera.

When he was owner of the El Car mine, near Fresnillo, one of the richest gold mines in Mexico, just before the time of Carranza, bandits seized Griffin, threatening execution if he did not deliver several thousand pesos.

He had just made an ore shipment and was out of none, he told them. They refused to believe, and standing him up against a wall blindfolded, pointed their guns and took aim. It was then that his housekeeper dashed out of the house, holding in her hand all of Griffin’s immediate fortune, 18 pesos. She explained the ore shipment, and the bandits believed her, saying they would return the following week to demand the full amount, but in the meantime, Griffin and Viviana had left for the United States. At another time she nursed him through fever. During his sickness, bandits raided Fresnillo and she hid Griffin from their sight, though every house in the city was raided.

When Griffin took sick, and later on Saturday night, when he was removed to a hospital for an operation he realized he was dying. He sent for his friends, and told them that there was only one thing left for him to do to insure happiness, and that was to see that Viviana was made secure. He wanted to will her his property.

Someone told him that, to make the will secure, he should marry her. He gladly consented. Preparations were being made Monday for the marriage license and Viviana was ready to go to the hospital, when word came of his death. But every assurance is given that the will is perfectly legal; besides there is no one to contest it.

Merrit A. Griffin came to Charleston with his father, Henry Griffin, when he was a child. When 15 he left for Michigan where he became a lumberjack and worked with Weyerhauser. One winter he was laid up by an injury to his foot, and a man his family back in Pennsylvania had befriended loaned Griffin the money to start a saloon. His investment prospered, but when his foot healed, adventurous life called him and he lost his money on some speculation.

One cold winter’s day Griffin and a friend were walking on snowshoes through northern Michigan, when they became lost, and after tramping several days through the blinding snowstorm, their provisions long since exhausted, they found moccasin tracks. These they followed until they came to an Indian camp, where Griffin’s companion made themselves known by his use of the Indian dialect.

Although this was shortly after the civil war, when the Indians were still numerous and oftimes hostile, the two white men were taken into the presence of the chief, whom they found to be an educated man, well versed in english.

He seemed to find considerable amusement in contemplating them. Griffin supposed this presaged scalping, but after a hearty dinner his fears were considerably allayed.

Wishing to flatter the chief, he complimented his dinner. Again the chief smiled enigmatically, and the same quizzical countenance puzzled the white men. “Do you know what it was you ate that pleased you so much?” the chief asked.
“No,” was the answer.
“It was skunk meat,” replied the Indian.
Thereupon he showed the visitors the Indian method of cooking the animal. They were trapped, then strung up by the leg and allowed to wash in a creek two days before cooking. This removed any odor or taint, but the chief, knowing the white man’s prejudice, had played his little joke.
Griffin was so pleased that he sent the chief a batch of American doughnuts, dispatching them by the guide the chief furnished to take the wanderers back to their camp.

When Griffin moved again he was still a young man. He went west to the Dakotas an became a conductor, but tiring of this, recruited a gang of laborers and started up as a contractor. He graded much of the old Northern Pacific, and when he was ready to come to Texas was worth $250,000.

During his time there, however, he had made close friends with many of the famous frontiersman, including Roosevelt, the young New Yorker, whose ranch adjoined him, and with whom he used to take 100 mile horseback rides.

He was a close friend of “Buffalo Bill” Cody, before the latter became famous, and was authority for the statement, not generally known, that Buffalo Bill was started in business by an Englishman, Lord Curzon.

While in the West Griffin was a great hunter, especially for buffalo. One day he killed 38, he told his friends here. He also told of the times when the buffalo had become nearly extinct and their bones lay bleached on the great flat prairies, Then it was that the bone hunters came from the east to gather the mazruuoth frames for farm fertilizers.

The next known about Griffin, he was in Corpus Christi, flushed with wealth, to build the Corpus Christi and South America, a railway to connect Texas and the southern hemisphere.

This part of the story is recalled by George Westervelt, real estate dealer here. Westervelt, Griffin and the late Col. E.H. Ropes, who has a son, Major E. H. Ropes, stationed at Camp Travis, were joined by one other, J. S. Peter, of San Antonio, now vice-president of the S.A. and A.P.

It was Colonel Ropes’ dream to build a line connecting North and South America. He had been one of the greatest railway builders in America. The four partners saw a great future for Corpus Christi, then a town of scarcely more than 2,000, as a great deep-water port. To this end they build railway tracks about the town, some of which are the foundation of the Gulf Coast lines today.

The harbor at Corpus Christi was shallow at that time, and there was no suitable entrance for the comparatively small ships of that day. So Griffin set to work and bisected Mustang Island, digging an immense long channel through the sand. This inlet is not in use today, but during the Corpus Christi flood it had not been closed and it is claimed that it let in much of the water that inundated the city.

When in 1897, the country was in the grip of the great panic, and Colonel Ropes was unable to raise more money from his eastern backers, the great Pan-American railway fell down, and the partners went bankrupt.

For a while Griffin worked as a locomotive engineer and later was employed on the King ranch, but his greatest adventure was still to befall him.

Going to Mexico, he prospected the country from end to end and finally, after years with the packsaddle, located El Carmin, an old mine abandoned by the Spaniards because they had no facilities other than for scratching the surface. Later he took in a partner. There was a three-inch vein of gold and silver when Griffin located it, and after going deeper the vein enlarged to nine inches, and finally to twelve, and the ore assayed $1,000 to the ton. A recent appraisal places the value of the property at $1,000,000.

It was when he was on a fair way to recoup his last fortunes that bandits drove him from the country.

This was not the only time bandits oppressed him; for his friend, Severino Martinez, a mechanic here, recalls the time two brigands stole Griffin’s horses, and he pursued them six days, finally locating them in the desert and shooting them.

When he came to San Antonio his youth was gone, his last hope of wealth had fled, he was an old man and fairly beaten, and he knew it, but he never lost courage. A hog ranch is a small thing for a man who once owned railways and mines, but sorrows did not oppress this old man.

He weighed around 170 pounds at the time of his death, and was well preserved. His health was perfect up to the last few days. He worked ten hours a day, and never complained of being tired. His strength was phenomenal. He could life twice the amount that the ordinary man is capable of.

His last few years were passed quietly with Viviana. At one time he suffered reverses when his hogs died of cholera.

George Willis recalls the time when Griffin bought his first automobile, it is said to have been the first Ford ever sold by Clifton George. Willis remembers Griffin inviting him for an auto ride two days after he had bought his car and began learning to drive it. “I will say he certainly learned quickly,” said Willis. “The day after he bought it he took a party of friends to New Braunfels, and we went the whole way at 40 miles an hour.”

Although Griffin was never a war veteran, he was victor in hundreds of man-to-man conflicts. He took no part in the Mexican revolutions. During the civil war he enlisted but got no nearer than half way to the front when peace was signed.

He was buried at 10 o’clock Wednesday morning from the chapel of Hagy McCollam. He is survived by two brothers, Cornelius and Arnold, of Montana; one sister in Addison, N.Y., and by another sister, Mrs. Carrie Smith, of Wellsboro, R.D. 8