Thomas Leonard Griffin (1894 - 1976)

Born 17 Apr 1894 in Current Settlement, Eleuthera, Bahamas

Ancestors

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Biography

Thomas Griffin is part of a Bahamian family.

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Thomas Leonard Griffin was born 17 Apr 1894 at The Current Settlement, Eleuthera Bahamas. He was the son of Joseph B. Griffin of the Current and Annie Fox of Long Island, Bahamas.

Many men of The Current made their livelihood as fisherman and 1916 Thomas was one of them, Farming in the Bahamas in 1916, fishing in Floridaduring the early 1900's.. T.L. may have been an inspiration to other impoverished Bahamians who immigrated to Florida, including his friend Roland T. Symonette.*See below for TL's brothers left the Current during desperate economic times, they tried various vocations. In 1918, TL's draft form for the US military reports that he was employed in Hartford, CT as a steelworker. He worked for an undetermined number of years as a bootlegger.

T.L. immigrated to US to join the Bahamian fishing colony on Singers island and Conch Town. Riveria Beach, Florida. He was resident there from 1912. A HISTORY OF RIVIERA BEACH, FLORIDA, written in 1975 and edited by Lynn Brink explains the setting for two of TL's vocations, fishing and bootlegging;

" Fishing has always been an important activity in the Riviera Beach area. Both Lake Worth and the Gulf Stream off Singer Island offered excellent fishing. In the 1880s and 90s this was one of the attractions that drew the first tourists to Oak Lawn. For years commercial fishermen from the Bahamas had been fishing the waters off Singer Island. Sometime before the F i r s t World War, a colony of fishermen settled as squatters on (Singer's Island and later at Riveria Beach.) At first they stayed only during the fishing season and returned to the Bahamas in the summer. The Bahamian fishermen were called "conchs." as they still are in the Keys, and Riviera was for many years nicknamed "Conch Town.""

A HISTORY OF RIVIERA BEACH, FLORIDA, says of T. L . that "He lives today (1975) in Riviera Beach, and says that by 1910 there were 12 to 25 men squatting on the island in the winter. They built shacks to live in and later were joined by thejr families. By 1914 there was a small Pentecostal church and a school on the island; a Mrs. Johnson was the teacher."

" While some fishermen lived on the island year round, many followed the flshing. Mr. Griffin fished in Connecticut some sumners and said many commercial fishermen from New Jersey came to Riviera in the winter. In the early years the fish had to be taken by boat to the fish houses in West Palm Beach. About 1919 Charles Newcomb gave the Florida East Coast Railroad use of some property on which t o construct a loading platform for the shipment'of fish. A barrel factory also was established. The fish were iced, placed in wooden barrels and shipped by refrigerated railroad cars to Fulton's Fish Market in New York City. By the 1920's, Riveria was one of the largest fishing ports on the east coast of Florida. Three fish houses were built in Riviera i n the 20s: R. R. Ricou and Sons. Richardson's and the Riviera Fish Company.

Around 1919 the fishing families left Singer Island to join other fishermen on the mainland. This was due either to pressure from the landowners on the island, to the 1919 hurricane or to attractions of subdivisions in Riviera that were being developed for them. By 1922 there were 75 commercial fishing families in Riviera, many of whom were active in getting the town incorporated that year."

TL naturalized and served in US Military as part of the 211th engineers. He was honorably discharged.

TL married Edith Maude Davis (b 28 October 1894) . Edith was the sister of Zell Davis, Zell marriedTL'ssister Olive.. On12 Jul 1920, TL and Edith had a daughter named Vera Faye Griffin who married Stanford Moree (b 1917, Fl.).

During prohibition, TL was a bootlegger. "Because Prohibition was an unpopular law, breaking it without violence was acceptable to many ordinary citizens. Moonshining and bootlegging were lucrative businesses, especially during the difficult years after the boom ended."

"...Zell Davis of Pahokee, a successful trapper and hunter, married Olive Rowena Griffin of Riviera Beach. His brothers-in-law Thomas Leonard “T. L.” and Berlin Griffin introduced Davis to the “fun and games” of bootlegging, as explained by his son, Zell Davis, Jr., who became state’s attorney, in a 2004 oral history interview:"

"Berlin … would go out at the crack of dawn to go king fishing. … As the day wore on, he would slowly keep drifting further and further away from the king fishing fleet, and when he felt like it was safe, he would slip over to the Bahamas, get his load of liquor loaded in the middle of the night back into his king fishing boat, come back over, and get there about daybreak. … Then he would go in with the fleet and unload his booze."

…" [People] would ask him to bring liquor in, and they’d pay him a premium. … [H]e hired boats and captains. … And then it just got bigger and bigger and bigger, and he had boats that were taking liquor from Nassau all the way to New York. … [H]e and Joe Kennedy [father of President John F. Kennedy] made their own deal and brought liquor into this country with partners. …"

TL Griffin and his (2nd or 3rd cousin) Roland Symonette, two "poor boys" from The Current extravagantly purchased a yacht together, supposedly to transport TL's aging parents from the Bahamas to the US. When you read the contemporary newspaper account, you can feel the reporter's incredulity. (Verify date of attached clipping to see whether they used it for bootlegging or shipping goods.)

Zell Davis elaborated on the times that TL lived in saying, "Joe Risden, who had a gambling establishment here on Main Street—Royal Poinciana Way—lived on the lakefront just north of the golf course here in Palm Beach. In those days, it was all woods. You’d go down this long road, like a rut road, to his house, and there my dad would pick up liquor that had been dropped off the night before from some boat that came in from the Bahamas. … [E]veryone knew it, but they didn’t know it. …"

"When I [was] state’s attorney, [Berlin.] Griffin … said one day at our Thanksgiving dinner … “I’ve never met a politician I couldn’t buy.” … He went on to explain that he had paid federal judges, he had paid circuit judges, he had paid sheriffs—he owned everybody. And he cited examples and names and how he’d give this guy a car and this guy so much booze and—as we know, Prohibition was not well received by the populace. … [T]hey were never arrested. Their men were arrested, but they’d bail them out immediately and then that would be the end of the case."

When Prohibition was repealed in 1933, the Griffins used the money they had made to purchase legal licenses to sell liquor, said Davis, including “half a dozen” in Palm Beach."...

In 1935, TL and his wife lived in Riveria Beach with their 14 yo daughter.In 1940 he was a lodger with the Albury Wells family, once again working as a deep sea fisherman and employed by a commercial fishery.

Vera Fayvette Griffin Moree predeceased her father, passing away on 19 Sep 1973 in Palm Beach, Florida, United States.

On 14 Dec 1976, Thomas L. Griffin passed away at the age of 82 in Palm Beach county, Florida. His mortal remains are buried in West Palm Beach, Palm Beach, Florida, at the Royal Palm Memorial Gardens. At the time of his passing, TL had a granddaughter Edith Taylor, 4 grandsons, Stanford, James. Thomas and GeraldMoree and 7 great grandchildren.

• Ca. 1918 T.L. witnessed Roland Symonette's first marriage, to Nellie Symonette, possibly serving as "best man" at RT's wedding. This was unusual as siblings usually witnessed marriages. It also suggests that TL may have retuned from the States for the wedding.

Sources

"Bahamas Civil Registration, 1850-1959", database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QJDC-RGCC : 22 February 2021), Thomas Avan Griffin, 1894.

• Passport application

Census

A HISTORY OF RIVIERA BEACH, FLORIDA Lynn Brink, editor

History Comnittee Members: Louise Bowe John Brat Gertrude Burney Barbara Cohen George McClain Jim Owens Tom Terry Helen Tooke Nanette Thomas Published by the Bicentennial Commission o f Riviera Beach, Florida with the assistance ,of the Bicenten- nial Commission of Florida and the Bicentennial Commission of Palm Beach County.

Probibition- Palm Beach History Online: http://www.pbchistoryonline.org/page/prohibition

"United States, Veterans Administration Master Index, 1917-1940," database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QPRB-FRDJ : 3 September 2021), Thomas Leonard Griffin, 7 Feb 1919; citing Military Service, NARA microfilm publication 76193916 (St. Louis: National Archives and Records Administration, 1985), various roll numbers.

Tennessee, U.S., Naturalization Records, 1888-1992 for Thomas Leonard Griffin District Court, Eastern District, Chattanooga Chattanooga Military Petitions 1918 Aug (Volume 1)

"United States Census, 1930," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:SBQS-Y3Z : accessed 23 August 2022), Thomas L Griffin, West Palm Beach, Palm Beach, Florida, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 8, sheet 11B, line 76, family 319, NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002), roll 328; FHL microfilm 2,340,063.

"Florida Death Index, 1877-1998," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VV61-PR6 : 25 December 2014), Thomas Leonard Griffin, 14 Dec 1976; from "Florida Death Index, 1877-1998," index, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com : 2004); citing vol. , certificate number 88600, Florida Department of Health, Office of Vital Records, Jacksonville.

Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/143793713/thomas-leonard-griffin: accessed 23 August 2022), memorial page for Thomas Leonard Griffin (17 Apr 1894–14 Dec 1976), Find a Grave Memorial ID 143793713, citing Royal Palm Memorial Gardens, West Palm Beach, Palm Beach County, Florida, USA; Maintained by ECHG (contributor 48433763).