Joel Griffin's family 1767-1833

Joel Griffin’s family; Joel // Samuel // Samuel Griffin of Killingworth------------- The 1820 Federal Census taken in Bangor, Franklin County, New York, adds a lot of definition to the family of Joel Griffin and Submit Alvord. The transcription of the original, lists a family of eleven. The list includes two young males under the age of ten. A close examination of the original manuscript uncovers certain clues. The column that lists the two young boys appears to be smudged. If you look at a number of pages that make up the census for Bangor you will see where the census taker made several mistakes. You can see where he blotted out an original number and inserted another number. Such is the case with the two boys. What you are actually seeing is that the census taker wrote down the number “2” and then tried to blot it out. The actual record should have been a blank column. Many researchers, relying on the transcription, have looked for two what are in fact non existent boys. ------------------------- What the 1820 Census shows is a family of 7 children and their parents. The two oldest boys, Oramel age 26 and Milton age 24 have left home. In the household are Aaron and Joel Jr. listed as between the ages of 16 and 25. The census list two older girls, Lois age 23 age Sophia age 17. There are two girls age 10 to 15, Laura and Sophronia. The baby in the family is Nancy age 8 in 1820. ------------------- The 1820 Census did not in fact list the names in the household. We have to wait until the 1850 census before each member of a household is listed by name. It has only been by a curious journey that we have discovered the names of Joel and Submit’s children. ------------------ Joel and his brother, Asahel, left Killingworth, CT as young men. They are listed in the 1790 census in New Haven, Vermont. While Asahel’s presence is easy to trace in New Haven there is no footprint for Joel. We discover Joel in Swanton, Vermont after a detailed search in an index for the 1800 census for the state of Vermont. In the first volume of town records a few of the men in town recorded their children. On a page we find, “Oramel Griffin Son of Joel & Submit Griffin Born in Swanton March 28th, 1794. Milton Griffin Son of Joel & Submit Griffin born in Swanton January 18th 1796. Lois Griffin Daughter of Joel and Submit Griffin born in Swanton October 8th 1797”. ---------------------- There are no town records for the birth of the three additional children, Aaron, Joel Jr. and Sophia born in Swanton. By the time that Laura was born on 1805 the family was living in Malone/Bangor, Franklin County, New York. ------------------ Birth records for Franklin County, New York are nonexistent. As a result early efforts to identify Joel and Submit’s children ended in failure. One of the few records that mention a Griffin is a marriage of Sophronia Griffin to Solon Jackson Nichols in the Malone Palladium. The article notes that Sophronia was from Malone/ Bangor. The date, October 1828, hints that Sophronia could be a member of Joel’s family. The discovery of the identify of Joel and Submit’s children hinged on the fact that Oramel was to gain some notoriety in his life. Early records for men who served in the war of 1812 include a record of Oramel. It included information that in 1821 he had moved to Sparta in Livingston County. A search for him in western New York eventually led to a biography in an early history written for Allegany County, New York. He was considered to be one of the most prominent men to live in the County in its first one hundred years. The history noted that due to his financial success he was able to draw his extended family around him. Based on that knowledge it was easy to find record of Oramel, along with his father and mother and brothers Joel Jr. and Milton, in and around Rushford, Allegany, New York. Their names are prominent in the histories written for Rushford. In reviewing census and other records we also find Solon Jackson and Sophronia Nichols living in nearby New Hudson near Milton. Another hint of family connections is the fact that Oramel named his two boys Solon and Jackson after his brother-in-law. As we expanded our search we found the extended Griffin family buried in a family plot in the White Cemetery in Rushford. The names of Oramel his father and mother and his brother Joel Jr. are etched on a single pillar. ----------------------- In the history, Rushford, and Rushford People, there is a section dedicated to the Griffin’s, Oramel, Milton and Joel. Later on in the volume we find a reference to a Mrs. Hitchcock who the histories notes was a sister to the well-known Joel Griffin. It is an easy search to find the family of Augustus and Sophia Hitchcock living in Caneadea a sister city to Rushford. In the 1880 census we find Sophia Hitchcock, identified as a “sister” as part of the household of Solon and Sophronia Nichols. ---------------- Also discussed in the Rushford history is the Gordon family. The reference notes that Simon Gordon, born May 11, 1811, married Laura Griffin. This poses the question, is Laura a part of Joel’s family? Oramel again provides the answer indirectly. ---------------------- Oramel by his own determined initiative rose up the economics ladder. He apprenticed himself to a successful businessman and worked himself up to a partnership. He would later move to Rushford where he established his own dry goods store and allied businesses. He raised enough capital to buy property along the Genesee Canal, an offshoot to the Erie Canal, were he established a prominent transshipment center. A town, named Oramel, grew up at that location. With his accumulated wealth Oramel became a prominent land developer on the frontier in Michigan. His sons Solon and Jackson managed his affairs in Michigan. Due to the level of success in the Michigan undertaking at some point many members of the extended family gathered around Kalamazoo including Solon and Jackson and Milton’s daughter Mary. We find in the 1880 census, in Michigan, in the household of Solon and Sophronia Nichols , Sophia Hitchcock. In the census records for the extended family it is easy to find family connections as members of the separate families show up in the census records for their kin. ------------------ With a hint that she may have died in Michigan we searched the vital records for Sophia Hitchcock. In the Michigan State Archives we found a will filed under the name Sophia Hitchcock. In the will we find confirmation for a number of family connections. Sophia identifies her sisters, Sophronia Nichols, Laura Gordon, the wife of Simon Gordon from Rushford, and “My sister Nancy F Gordon of Sauk Rapids, Minn”. Later evidence demonstrated that Laura and Nancy had married Gordon cousins from Rushford. --------------------------- In the 1855 New York census for Caneadea we find in the household of Simon and Laura Gordon the recently widowed Sophia Hitchcock. Also in the household is Jackson Griffin, Oramel’s son. ------------------- Following up on the hints about Laura a search in Sauk Rapids led us to the Trinity Lutheran Cemetery. In the cemetery we find headstones for Nancy F Gordon, Sept. 1, 1884 and Samuel Gordon, Dec. 14, 1879. ------------------- The most tenuous family connection is for Aaron. The only record of Aaron is in the 1820 and 1830 census for Malone, New York. In those census records the census taker would work his way through a neighborhood going from one house to the next or down a country lane. In the 1830 census we find Aaron living next door to Joel and a few house down from Milton. Dates in the 1820 and 1830 census records indicate that he was born about 1799. A 1799 date of birth is a match for the time line of Joel’s children. --------------------- Oramel was born March 28, 1794 in Swanton, Vermont. He died in Rushford September 5, 1877. He married Caroline Gary. ----------------------- Milton was born in Swanton on January 18, 1796. Milton married Eleanore Doty. The last record of Milton is the 1875 Census taken in New Hudson, Allegany, New York. Evidence from his son, Joel's, will indicates that by 1880 he has passed away. -------------------- Lois was also born in Swanton October 8, 1797. There is not a documentary trail that traces the life of Lois. There are family records on web sites such as Ancestory.Com that documents the life of Hiram Luther Drake and his wife Lois Griffin. The telling hint for a family connection is the name of her oldest son, Oramel. Lois is buried in the Riverside Cemetery in Gouverneur, New York. The cemetery records note a date of death, June 24, 1874. ----------------------- Aaron Griffin left a very faint documentary trail. The key document is the 1830 Census. The census shows Aaron living next door to Joel and a few doors down from Milton. The census records and the birth order for Joel’s family suggest a date of birth in 1798/9 in Swanton, Vermont. He disappears after the 1840 Census. ------------------------ Joel Griffin Junior was born in Swanton according to census data in about 1801. He and his wife Clarissa are buried in the White Cemetery in Rushford, New York. His headstone gives a date of death of April 22, 1871. ---------------------------- Sophia was the last of the Griffin’s to be born in Swanton. Census records place her birth in Vermont in about 1803. Her will was probated in Kalamazoo, Mich. February 7, 1881. Sophia married Augustus Hitchcock in Caneadea, New York. -------------------------------- Laura Griffin according to census records was born in 1805 in Malone/Bangor, Franklin, New York. She married Simon Gordon in Rushford. In the 1855 NY census in Caneadea in the household of Simon and Laura Gordon we find Sophia Hitchcock and Jackson Griffin, Oramel’s son. In the 1855 and 1865 NY census records the county of her birth is listed as, Franklin. In her will her sister Sophia identified her as Laura Gordon of Moline, Ill.. The last record of her is the 1880 census in Moline, Ill. living with her daughter Helen Wheeler. ------------------------- Sophronia and her husband Solon Nichols followed their son, Rollin, to Topeka, Kansas later in their life. They are buried in the Rochester Cemetery in Topeka. Her headstone records a birth on January 25, 1807 and her death on January 10, 1893. ------------------------------------ Nancy Griffin’s date of birth is found in biographical data collected for her husband. Nancy’s date of birth is noted as 1812 in Franklin County, New York. The 1855 and 1865 NY census records list the county of her birth as, Franklin. Cemetery records for the Trinity Lutheran Cemetery in Sauk Rapids, Minn. lists her death on September 1, 1884. Nancy and her husband, Samuel were later moved to the Rushford Cemetery. In his biography Samuel’s wife is identified as Nancy Griffin. --------------------------- Samuel Griffin Genealogy Blog—samuelgriffingenealogy.blogspot.com ------------------------- Rushford and Rushford People by Helen J White Gilbert, 1910; available online.