Griffins Heading West in Early 1800s

Sons and daughters of Benoni Griffin, Jr., seem to have these common characteristics: a thirst for education, Christian principles, an interest in politics, as well as a desire to seek the new opportunities on the nation's frontier. Abraham "Abram" Griffin was no different. He was born about 1783 - 84 in Virginia, grew up in the Green Bank area of Bath County, Western Virginia, served in the War of 1812, and married in Gallia, Ohio, about 1815. The settlement of Gallia area is an interesting story. Hundreds of Frenchmen were duped by a land company who had no rights to sell land and hyped the new country's glories. The government provided some property to the immigrants who fell for the scheme, but most could not handle frontier life and the lands were then sold to American settlers at a bargain. You will find many Virginians who followed the river routes to Gallipolis, Ohio in the earliest 1800s. Abraham and wife Polly Spurlock are found in the mountainous area of Lawrence County, OH, in 1820. This area is now part of the Wayne National Forest. Within the next ten years, Abraham / Abram and the Spurlock family moved further west to Vermillion County, Indiana, not far from Terre Haute. Vermillion was a new county in 1824, so this was untamed frontier as well. In that county, the Griffin family grew to 7 children. By the next census, 1840, the family is found in Canton, Illinois, near Peoria. [Does the Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters sound familiar?] There they resided until Abraham's death after 1860. Abraham's youngest daughter, Anna Griffin Ball, wrote a narrative, published in 1908, about the family's migration and life in early day Illinois. She states that her father Abraham received the land in Illinois as a bounty grant for his service in the War of 1812. And she writes, "My father was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and was one of the pioneer exhorters of Canton. He was an old line Whig and later a strong Republican and I myself believe in the principles of the Republican Party and want to see Taft and every candidate on the Republican ticket elected. My parents were both of Welch (sp) descent. Our 3Gt Grandfather, Jonathan Griffin, of Pocahontas County, West Virginia, bought Abraham's portion of the land in the West VA estate of Benoni Griffin, Jr. in 1837. This record helps me to "deduce" that Jonathan was one of Benoni's children. He was the only one remaining in Bath/Pocahontas, West Virginia, by that date. There are other such purchases made by Jonathan during the same period of time, from Samuel Seely Griffin in Montgomery County OH, later Fulton Co., IL, Mary Griffin Brown of Marietta, OH, and Levi Griffin (mentioned in previous post), of Gallatin County, KY. When I look over the maps of the various places above where Benoni's children ended up, they are always on the edge of "civilized" territory of the new frontier, constantly moving West. Only Mary and her husband, Hugh Brown, were "city" dwellers, residing in Marietta, Ohio, where Hugh was a shoemaker, and one son was a "Boatman" on the Ohio River. All the sons are religious, and teaching or "exhorting", in the Methodist faith. They are hard-working, and involved in civic life in their communities. Descendants continue the service to their country, to teaching, and further reaching into the newly opened lands. I will tell the story of Samuel Seely Griffin in a future post.