Two Griffin pioneer families of Cass County

THE GRIFFINS PART 2 THE GRIFFINS AFTER THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION:

Meanwhile, the call for America’s independence from Britain divided the early settlers of the backcountry who did not trust the plantation owners of the East. The more recent settlers, coming down from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina, had no special connection to the English. But the traders and their associates were dependent on England and its British markets.

The close of the Revolutionary War in South Carolina centered around the “Tories” making a stand at Ninety- Six. Loyalists still believed Great Britain would win the war and send troops to protect them. A large British force under Lord Rawdon was still in South Carolina where more than 100 Loyalists from around Ninety-Six retreated into a nearby fort, now called Star Fort, with 200 local militia and 350 soldiers from the north.

Together they fortified the fort and parts of the town at Ninety-Six. For 28 days the American army of General Nathaniel Greene, 1000 men strong, laid siege to the fort and stockade. Loyalist militia inside the fort who survived the siege included many Griffin relatives: Cousins John Griffin Jr. and Horatio Griffin, William McClure (brother- in-law to Cherokee John Vann), Edward Vann (uncle of Cherokee John Vann), and James Holmes (husband of Anne Elders Griffin).

After the war, General Elijah Clarke, the American leader and hero of the war, commandeered Thomas Waters’s and Coosaponakee Griffin’s plantation in Georgia and made it his home.

Many other British Loyalists lost their properties and many of them were Griffins. James Holmes and his wife Anne lost their home and trading post that had become part of the stockade at Ninety-Six. The newly formed state of South Carolina turned the property into an academy for local children. Today it is part of the Ninety-Six Historical Site Park. The stockade is excavated and marked out for tourists to explore. The Star Fort nearby that also had protected local Loyalists is also part of the park.

Only John “Taleskeske” (sometimes spelled “Talha skeske”) Griffin, (1760-1839), son of Bill’s grandfather by his first wife, Elizabeth Kirksey, (1735-1772) married into the Cherokee nation. “Taleskeske” (John) was not Cherokee by birth, although he was an admixture of Yuchi, Sappony and Catawba as are all of the Old Liberty Griffins. Taleskeske John married Sarah Sah Ke Yah “Betsy” Wolf Occure, (1765-1845) of the Cherokee Nation.

Only this line of Griffins is recognized by the Cherokee Nation. The 1817 Old Settlers Cherokee roll lists these relatives as: “Walters (Waters) Griffin, Daniel Griffin, Jack Griffin, Jas. W. Griffin, Thomas Griffin, Wm Griffin, William Elders, George Guess, George Waters, Riley Waters, Michael Waters and Robert Waters but like many others they either returned to Georgia or never left.

Later, in 1836, Taleskeske Griffin’s children by his fullblood Cherokee wife were forcibly removed from their home at Nottely, a village in Tennessee.

They were rounded up and forced to go to Oklahoma via the “Trail of Tears.” The enrollment records of these Griffins reveal John’s Native name as “Taleskeske.” The records explain that he was not Cherokee but Catawba. John also had children with Yuchi/Sappony/Catawba daughter of Thomas Waters. The children of Win’s second wife, Elizabeth Stroud (1750-1829) after the death of Elizabeth Kirksey are believed to be descended from another Yuchi/Sappony/Catawba daughter of Thomas Waters and is the line through whom the Old Liberty Griffins are traced.

The “Path” from Ninety-Six crossed the Savannah River and what would become Georgia branching into North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee and South into Dade County Georgia. “Old Liberty Bill” was born there at Dalton, Georgia in 1806.

His father “Wm. Jr.” made frequent trips by packhorse from Cherokee country back to “Ninety-Six” to deliver trade goods for shipment to England and visit his father. “Wm. I” died at Ninety-Six in l800 and is buried there in the Griffin Cemetery. Wm. Jr. and Bill III and his 13 sons and daughters resided among the Cherokee — but were not Cherokee themselves — in Eastern Tennessee near Red Clay, where the Sacred Fire of the Cherokee was moved and the Cherokee Council met.

Several of Bill’s children were born at nearby Rising Fawn, (Georgia), also then part of the Cherokee Nation. They were neighbors of Chief John Ross who resided about four miles away from Red Clay at Flint City. The chief ’s father, “Dan’l Ross” from nearby “Rossville, Ga.,” was also a trader who frequented the Griffin trading post at “Ninety-Six” and himself owned about 200 acres nearby. But when their Cherokee neighbors in Georgia and Tennessee were “Removed,” all but one family of Griffins, the Catawba John “Taleskeske” Griffin who married into the Cherokee nation, was left behind. This despite the best efforts of many of “Bill’s children to apply for enrollment among their previous neighbors ... all denied without a blood tie.

Origin of The Law’s Chapel Griffins

Guest co-writer Beth Griffin who married into the Griffins traced to Law’s Chapel, said she researched these Griffins more than 20 years ago after her husband,, Eric, and his two brothers asserted, “we are not related to any Griffins around here.”

“I always admired the historical Laws Chapel Church and cemetery we would pass each time we visited Atlanta. I discovered that Eric’s second great uncle, William E. Griffin and family were buried there in the very first row! 1 also found his second great grandmother, Frances “Fannie” (Corley) Weams, also buried there along with many distant Griffin relatives.

“After three generations in Virginia, these Griffins traveled to South Carolina and from there to the southwestern part of Tennessee and its border with Alabama after the American Revolution.

“According to records from Laws Chapel Methodist Church, our Griffins arrived in Cass County from the area of Hay wood and Fayette Counties in Western Tennessee and Lauderdale County, Alabama. Two brothers probably traveled through Arkansas on the Law Wagon Train joined in Alabama. Many of their siblings had earlier relocated to other parts of Arkansas, Oklahoma and Indiana after their grandfather, William S. Griffin died in 1839.

To Be Continued