Samuel Griffin

SAMUEL GRIFFIN has been an active member of the Barber County bar more than twenty years, and has figured prominently in the public affairs of Medicine Lodge and the county. He has filled several county offices, and represented the county one term in the Legislature.

Mr. Griffin was born at Warren, Illinois, January 5, 1872, but has lived in Kansas since early boyhood. His father, Andrew J. Griffin, was a carpenter by trade, lived for a number of years in Illinois, and died in California. He married Emma Strong, who was born at Galena, Illinois, in 1850, and died at Oakland, California, in 1877. She was the mother of the following children: Alice, wife of Charles Noyes, owner of an art store at Dubuque, Iowa; Mame, a resident of Oakland, California, widow of George B. Anderson, a merchant; Samuel; and Elaine, wife of Leonard Ott, a farmer and cattle raiser near Medicine Lodge.

Samuel Griffin after the death of his mother was reared in the home of his aunt, Mrs. J. Q. Wheat. She removed to Medicine Lodge, Kansas, in 1886, and from that time Samuel Griffin attended the public schools of that town. Later he entered the Kansas University, and completed his law course and received his LL. B. degree in 1898. Since then he has been busied with a general civil and criminal practice, and is looked upon as one of the leading lawyers in western central Kansas. His offices are in the First National Bank Building. He was elected county attorney in 1898 and by re-election in 1911 served four years. He was again chosen to the same office in 1904 for another term. He was elected and represented Barber County in the State Legislature during the session of 1909, and was assigned to membership on the railroad and other important house committees. He is a stanch republican, is a member of the Episcopal Church and is a past master of Delta Lodge of Masons, belongs to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and is a member of the County and State Bar associations and the American Bar Association.

Mr. Griffin has acquired a good grain farm of 160 acres east of Medicine Lodge, and in 1908 erected one of the best modern homes in the town. He married at Medicine Lodge in 1901 Miss Blanche E. Young, daughter of J. F. and Rosetta L. (Isherwood) Young. Her father, who died at Medicine Lodge in 1898, was an early settler there of 1885, and for many years conducted a drug store, which is still owned by his widow. Mr. and Mrs. Griffin have one child, George, born August 1, 1914.

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