JOHN WILLIAM GRIGGS
GRIGGS, JOHN WILLIAM, lawyer, representative in the New Jersey state legislature 1876-77; state senator, 1883-89; president of the state senate, 1886; governor of New Jersey, 1896-98; attorney-general of the United States in the cabinets of President McKinley, 1898-1901 and a member of the Permanent International Court of Arbitration at the Hague from 1900; was born in Newton, Sussex county. New Jersey, July 10, 1849. His father, Daniel Griggs, was a farmer; a ruling elder of the Old School Presbyterian church of Newton, New Jersey, for thirty-five years, and while a resident of Flemington, New Jersey, the superintendent of the first Sunday-school estabhshed in the state. His mother was Emeline, daughter of Samuel Johnson of Sussex county. New Jersey. His grandfather was Samuel Griggs of Flemington, New Jersey. His first ancestor in America was Thomas Griggs, a native of Sussex, England, who immigrated to Massachusetts Bay colony in 1639 and settled in Boston. John William Griggs was brought up on his father's farm and inured by outdoor life and hard work on the farm grew to be a strong lad. He attended the Newton collegiate institute, and Lafayette college, Easton, Pennsylvania, where he was graduated A.B. 1868. He determined to fit himself for the profession of law, but on leaving college served for a time in the business office of the Central Railroad of New Jersey, in Phillipsburg, New Jersey. He was admitted to the bar at Paterson, New Jersey, in November, 1871, and began the practice of law in that city. He took a prominent part in local pohtics as a Republican and was elected to the state assembly, serving 1876 and 1877. In 1882 and again in 1885 he was elected a state senator from the Passaic senatorial district serving 1883-89, and as president of the senate in 1886. He was governor of New Jersey, 1896-98, elected in November, 1895, the first Republican candidate for governor elected since Marcus J. Ward, in 1865. On the resignation of Joseph McKenna as attorney-general of the United States in the cabinet of President McKinley to take his seat as associate justice of the United States
