Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1891
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 918
MAHLON GRIFFITH

Mahlon GRIFFITH, may well be ranked among the pioneers of this section of Iowa, and for this, if for no other reason, should he be allocated space in this connection for a biographical notice. The pioneers are fast passing away. The young men who came to Harrison County during the '50s, and prior to the Civil War, are now old men and many of them are sleeping the last sleep, while still others are fathers of large families of children who have grown up and gone out into life's conflict for themselves. The furrowed brow, the bedimmed eye, and the bowed form of the men, who in the pride of their young manhood, gazed out upon the primeval forests and beautiful valleys found within Harrison County, now belong to those whom we look upon with reverence on account of their age. Mr. GRIFFITH, was born in Belmont County, Ohio, December 3, 1819, and before speaking of his life in Harrison County, it should be said that he remained under the paternal roof until he was twenty-six years of age, which date marked an important era in his life, as during that year, and on December 20, 1846, he was united in marriage to Miss Elvira MATHEW, who was born in Farquier County, Va., November 5, 1830, and when four years of age moved with her parents to Muskingham County, Ohio.

Our subject was by trade a potter, and worked at the pottery business at Hopewell, Ohio, until 1850, when he came to Van Buren County, Iowa, where he rented land one year, and then went to Iowa County and purchased a farm, remaining three years, when he disposed of it and came to Pottawattamie County, and purchased land near the present site of Avoca. At that date there were but few people in this county, and a frame house had never been erected in Kanesville (now Council Bluffs.) Mr. GRIFFITH had a farm of four hundred acres, but owing to the discouraging prospects occasioned by the "hard winter" of 1856-57, he disposed of his land, at a good margin, and returned to his old home in the Buckeye State, which at one time seemed a paradise to him, but like many another man who had seen the rolling prairie of the Missouri Slope, he was again seized with the Western fever and the following year returned to Pottawattamie County, and after making three trips to Ohio overland, traversing the great prairie States of Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, he finally bought a part of his old place back near Avoca, where he lived and labored until 1876, in the autumn of which he sold out and located in Harrison County, where he now lives. At the time of his coming to Iowa there was no Omaha and Bellevue, as well as Florence, were mere trading points.

The children who have been born to Mr. and Mrs. GRIFFITH, eleven in number are as follows: Francis P., born June 10, 1848; George M., March 26, 1850; William F., August 25, 1852; Louis I., April 25, 1854; Mary V., March 14, 1856; James A., December 28, 1857; Dora A., June 6, 1859; Adelia E., January 21, 1863; Minnie V., July 1, 1866; Mahlon J., August 17, 1869; Daisy E., January 14, 1872.

These children are all living, and our subject and his wife who have reared this large family of sons and daughters who will rise up to call them blessed, are now the grandparents of thirty-one children. In their religious belief Mr. and Mrs. GRIFFITH hold to the faith as taught by the Methodist Church. Politically, our subject is a Democrat; he cast his first vote in Presidential election for James K. Polk.

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