Arioch Wentworth Griffiths (1851-1934)

Portrait courtesy of the town of Durham, New Hampshire, 1902.

   For many years distinguished in the civic life of Durham, New Hampshire, Arioch Wentworth Griffith won election to several local political offices in that town and in 1910 was an unsuccessful candidate for the New Hampshire house of representatives. A lifelong resident of the Granite State, Griffiths was born on August 31, 1851, the son of John B. and Ruth (Wentworth) Griffiths. He received his unusual first and middle names in honor of his maternal uncle Arioch Wentworth (1813-1903), a Boston-based multi-millionaire soapstone and marble magnate with substantial real estate holdings. 

   Young Arioch began his education in the common schools and would go on to attend the Newmarket High School and the Franklin Academy at Dover. As the son of a prominent Durham farmer, Arioch (as well as his brother Edward) inherited their family's 200-acre farm and in addition to farm work operated a vinegar and cider mill, an operation that could produce "one hundred barrels per day." 

   Arioch Griffiths married in June 1876 to Sadie B. McDaniel (1856-1943). The couple's fifty-seven-year union would see the birth of one son, John H. Griffiths, in 1877. A prominent figure in the local chapters of the Knights of Pythias, Griffiths was a member of both the Newmarket chapter of that organization as well as a founding figure of the group's lodge in Durham. Griffiths was also a longstanding member of the Sons of the American Revolution and engaged in banking, being a past director of the Newmarket National Bank.

   The holder of several political offices in Durham, Arioch Griffiths served at various times as town meeting moderator, census enumerator, road agent, deputy sheriff, and for two terms town selectman. In 1910 he set his sights on a seat in the state legislature, and in that election year faced off against Democratic candidate Albert DeMerritt, a former member of the state board of agriculture and state constitutional convention delegate. On election day it was DeMerritt who emerged triumphant, garnering 117 votes to Griffiths' 70.

   Following his legislative loss, Griffiths served as a justice of the peace in Durham and was an assistant quartermaster general for the William A. Frye Co., No.5. of the Knights of Pythias. He died in Durham on April 1, 1934, at age 82 and was survived by his wife Sadie. Sadie McDaniel Griffiths survived her husband by nearly a decade, and following her death in 1943 was interred at the Griffiths Cemetery alongside her husband.

Portrait from "New Hampshire Agriculture: Personal and Farm Sketches", 1897.