| Other People | Frank J. Bradley | Olive Rambo Cook | Jerry Litton | | |||
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Past and Present of Livingston County Volume 2. Biographies by Major A. J. Roof. 1913 |
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Pages 119-121
Rev. T. M. Griffiths, whose home is on section 18, Blue Mound township, is one of the public-spirited citizens and progressive farmers of his locality and has in addition a wide acquaintance by reason of his long service as a minister of the Missionary Baptist church. He has lived in Livingston county since 1891 and his home is upon a farm of one hundred and forty-three acres, which by its neat and attractive appearance is proof of a life of energy, activity and usefulness. Mr. Griffiths is a representative of an old Welsh family and was himself born in the parish of Eglwyswrw, Wales, July 21, 1856. He is a son of John and Elizabeth Griffiths, natives of Llainfawr, the former for many years a prominent farmer in that section, where he cultivated land upon which members of his family had resided for over one hundred and twenty-five years. Both parents have passed away, the mother dying in 1877 and the father in 1891. They are buried in the Eglwyswrw graveyard.
In the acquirement of an education T. M. Griffiths attended the North Wales Baptist College and was graduated from that institution in 1879. In August, of the same year, he was ordained a minister of the Missionary Baptist church at Darranfelen and officiated there for some time. He afterward left Wales and came to America, settling first in Braceville, Illinois, where he resumed his duties as a minister of the gospel. Coming to Missouri, he purchased eighty-three acres of land in Livingston county, to which in 1907 he added sixty acres. He has since remodeled the attractive residence and has made many other substantial improvements, including a silo, a substantial barn and fences which divide his land into convenient fields. He raises stock of all kinds, keeping thirty head of cattle and eight horses and making a specialty of pure-bred Shropshire sheep, of which he has twenty-five high-grade animals.
On December 29, 1880, Mr. Griffiths married, at Blaenconnin, Wales, Miss Theodosia Williams, a daughter of John and Mary Williams, of Brynmaen, Pembrokeshire, South Wales, where the father cultivated land upon which the family had resided for hundreds of years. John Williams passed away in 1900, his wife surviving him for three years, and both are buried in Llandisillio, South Wales. Mr. and Mrs. Griffiths became the parents of six children: Mary E., a graduate of the Dawn high school and the Kirksville (Mo.) Normal School, who is now a teacher in the rural schools; Henry M., who is a graduate of the Dawn high and Warrensburg normal schools and who is now a student in the Kansas City Law School; Anna J., a graduate of the Dawn high school and the Kirksville Normal, who married Morris Copple, of Ludlow; John W., who is a graduate of the Dawn high school and the William Jewell College of Liberty, Missouri, and who is assisting his father; Rev. Thomas M., who was graduated from the Dawn high school and the William Jewell College and who is now a student in the seminary at Rochester, New York; and Theodosia, who was graduated from the Dawn high school and the Kirksville Normal School and who is teaching school. The family are members of the Missionary Baptist church and Mr. Griffiths has served as a minister of that denomination for twenty-one years, during which time he has labored with untiring zeal and devotion for the upbuilding of the cause of Christianity. He is a progressive in his political beliefs and has been for many years active in local public life, serving as justice of the peace and as a committeeman of the progressive party in this township, an office which he still holds. He is deeply concerned in the material, intellectual and moral development of his community and at all times his life has been actuated by high and honorable principles and characterized by kindly actions. He realizes fully the obligations which devolve upon him and finds it a privilege and a pleasure to bring his fellowmen to a knowledge of the truth and to an understanding of those principles of life which lead to more harmonious relations with the divine law.