Matthew Griswold was an American jurist and governor of Connecticut, as well as the first Lieutenant Governor and Chief Justice of the Superior Court, during the American Revolution.
Background
Matthew Griswold was the eldest son of John and Hannah (Lee) Griswold, and was a descendant of Matthew Griswold, who with his brother Edward settled in Connecticut in 1639. He was born at Lyme, Connecticut, the United States on March 25, 1714, and was a resident of the town for the greater part of his life.
Education
His natural abilities were considerable and Matthew Griswold seems to have developed them with little aid from others. President Stiles of Yale mentions that he “fitted for College, settled a Farmer, studied Law proprio Marte, bot him the first considera. Law Library in Connect. ”.
In 1779 he received the honorary degree of LL. D. from Yale.
Career
Matthew Griswold was admitted to the bar in 1743 and began practice in his native town. In 1751 he began his public career as representative of Lyme in the General Assembly, a position which he held until 1759 when he was chosen a member of the Council, the real seat of political power under the charter government.
He became a supporter of the colonial cause when the revolutionary movement began and from the days of the Stamp Act agitation until the close of the struggle was prominent among the civil leaders of the state. During the war he was for some time head of the Council of Safety.
His most important public activity had commenced in 1769 when he began a period of fifteen years’ service as deputy governor, which under the peculiar system then prevailing, as yet unaffected by the salutary influence of the doctrine of separation of powers, involved the responsibility of presiding over the General Assembly when acting in its judicial capacity.
Until 1784 that body constituted the highest appellate tribunal of Connecticut. He was therefore for fifteen years chief justice of the state.
From 1784 to 1786 he was governor, rendering competent service in the period of post-war depression and dissension. Two years later he closed his public career by presiding over the convention which ratified the federal Constitution.
He then retired to his farm at Lyme, a fine example of the sturdy citizenship which governed the New England states in the transition from colonial known as the Griswold Light Cavalry.
An early advocate of armored ships, he and John F. Winslow accepted a contract for a number of wooden vessels sheathed with metal.
Griswold, with Winslow, and C. S. Bushnell, showed the naval Board a model of Ericsson’s Monitor, and, gaining the interest of President Lincoln, agreed to construct and deliver such a “floating battery” within one hundred days, on the understanding fliat they should assume the entire cost—approximately a quarter of a million dollars—in case the undertaking failed.
The Monitor, begun in October 1861, was constructed at the plant of T. F. Howland, Greenpoint, Long Island, under Ericsson’s direction, but the machinery, plates, and much of the other iron work were manufactured in Troy. The ship was launched on January 30, 1862.
As a result of its success, Griswold and his associates built six more vessels of the same type. Their destructiveness affected materially the course of the war. On account of these patriotic activities, Griswold was elected to the Thirty-eighth Congress as a War Democrat. Since he voted for the repeal of the Fugitive-Slave Act, he was returned to the Thirty-ninth Congress only by Republican support. As a member of the Committee on Naval Affairs during his first two terms, he defended the conduct of the war, and in a speech delivered February 4, 1865, attacked the proposal to divide the responsibility of the Navy Department. Upon his reelection in 1866 he became a member of the committee on ways and means.
In 1864, in association with Erastus Corning, A. L. Holley, Winslow, and Erastus Corning, Jr. , Griswold secured control of the Bessemer patents in America, known after 1868 as John A. Griswold & Company.
So general was the interest in the plants erected in Troy that the members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science visited the city in 1870 to examine the works.
After his defeat for the governorship and his withdrawal from public life, Griswold devoted himself to the Promotion of his financial interests in Troy and to the cultural advancement of the city, in which his name has been perpetuated by various organizations.
At first Griwold supported Democrats, but later he became Republican. Griswold was a strong supporter of the colonists' cause during the American Revolution.
Personality
President Stiles gives an interesting glimpse of him and his establishment with its “fine Library of well chosen Books, ” its herds of cattle and general prosperity, and of the owner “in perfect Health of Body and Mind. Lame yet vigorous. ”
Connections
In 1743 Matthew Griswold married Ursula, daughter of Governor Roger Wolcott, of Windsor, Connecticut.