Overview/Background

Information on James Griffith from suggested books, “Biography of a Small Mountain” by Donna Ashworth, and “They Came to the Mountain” by Platt Cline.

Griffith probably ranched and did some business in the lumber industry. In the 1890’s Matt Black was charged with the murder of Griffith who had called him a “long-nosed son of a bitch” and accused Black of running Griffith calves up the canyon for meanness. The two met in the forest and witnesses say that when Griffith went for his rifle which was on his horse, Black said, “You pull that gun and I’ll shoot the living piss out of you.” When Griffith reached for his rifle, Black fired one shot killing Griffith which he regretted the rest of his life. Black was let off on self-defense.

Griffith left a widow, Martha Griffith, and 2 children. She remarried Arthur W. Kinsey and they had two daughters, Mrs. F. J. Stein and Miss Lura Kinsey, “who taught school here for many years, and for whom Kinsey School was named. During the early 1900s, Kinsey was county road supervisor.” (Platt Cline, pg 153)