Cyrus Griffin
Cyrus Griffin was an American lawyer and politician, who served as the final President of the Congress of the Confederation and first United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Virginia.
Education and career
Born on July 16, 1748, to the former Mary Anne Bertrand and her husband Col. Leroy Griffin in Farnham Parish, then in Lancaster County, Colony of Virginia, British America, He was a descendant of an Englishman named Thomas Griffin, who settled to the Virginia Colony in the early 1600s, and received land grants including from Edward Bradshaw of Lancaster County. That Thomas Griffin may have emigrated with relatives, for one old genealogist stated his widow married Samuel Griffin of Northumberland County, and bore another Col. Leroy Griffin of Rappahannock County, who married Winifed Corbin and bore sons Thomas Griffin, Corbin Griffin of Middlesex County, and daughter Winifred who married Burgess and Col. Peter Presley of Northumberland House, and whose only daughter, also Winifred, married Anthony Thornton and whose son therefore was Col. Presley Thornton who served on the King's Council 1760-1769. Clearly, this Griffin was a patriot and also had two older brothers as well as a sister who married Col. Richard Adams of Richmond County. Thomas Bertrand Griffin, the eldest son, inherited his maternal grandfather's and uncles estates, Belle Isle in Lancaster County and also served as the Lancaster County clerk 1770-1777. Another slightly older brother Samuel Griffin also became a Virginia lawyer, and Continental Army officer before beginning a political career that included service in the U.S. House of Representatives. Another brother, Dr. Corbin Griffin practiced medicine in Yorktown and became the state surgeon during the Revolutionary War but was imprisoned by the British, and after his release served in the state senate.The family could trace its descent from Thomas Griffin, who had received land grant in 1651. Meanwhile, like his brothers Cyrus received a private education appropriate to his class in Virginia, then sailed to England to complete his education. He studied law at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and at the Middle Temple in London.
Legal and political career
Admitted to the Virginia bar, Griffin had a private legal practice in Lancaster County and surrounding areas in the Colony of Virginia from 1774 to 1777.Lancaster County voters elected him as one of their two part-time representatives in the Virginia House of Delegates, and he served from 1777 to 1778, and later from 1786 to 1787. Fellow legislators elected him among Virginia's delegates to the Second Continental Congress, where he served from 1778 to 1780.
He was a Judge of the Court of Appeals in Cases of Capture from 1780 to 1787.
Griffin became a delegate to the Ninth Congress of the Confederation from 1787 to 1788, serving as the final President of the Congress of the Confederation under the Articles of Confederation in 1788. He aligned with the Federalist party and served as United States Commissioner to the Creek Nation in 1789.