• General Notes

  From: Compendium of History and Biography of Central and Northern Minnesota (Chicago, Geo. A. Ogle & Co., 1904), pages 636-39.
  
  Charles P. Griswold, a wealthy and influential farmer and land-owner of the township of Minnesota Falls, Yellow Medicine County, Minnesota, has found a way to a large success, and his career shows what is repeated again and again in the lives of the settlers of the northwest that character and integrity, industry and thrift are indeed the dominant elements of every successful career.
  
  Mr. Griswold was born in Oswego County, New York, in 1831, and his father, Daniel, was a farmer and lumberman of old Yankee blood. His mother, Mary (Genet) Griswold, also came of good American stock. Charles P. Griswold was the youngest in a family of ten children. In 1832 the removal of his parents carried him to Pennsylvania, where he lived until he was thirty-one years old. There he married Jane Braughton, who came of Dutch descent on her mother's side, and was Yankee by her father's people. To this marriage were born ten children, eight of whom are now living: Bert; Jessie, a widow; Sadie, a widow; Pennie, married; Elmer, dead; Eland, Herbert; Mattie, who is a widow, and Estella, a widow.
  
  While in Pennsylvania Mr. Griswold was farming and lumbering, and when he came to Caadonia, in March, 1862, he followed farming. Late in 1865 he settled in Redwood Falls, and was one of the earliest pioneers of that city. In 1887 he came to Yellow Medicine County, making his home for three years at Minnesota Falls, where he owned a lumber yard. For a year and a half he owned and carried on a drug store in Granite Falls, having already owned a drug store in Minnesota Falls. About 1883 he settled on a farm in section 10, Minnesota Falls township, the land being entirely unimproved at that time. He put up a board shanty, and gradually improved year by year, until he now owns a magnificent estate of eight hundred acres. Here he devotes much attention to stock, having one hundred and seventy-five head on the place now. His buildings are banked on the banks of the Minnesota River, and the place is very sightly. Last year he sold about seventy-five dollars' worth of apples, and he has plums, strawberries, currents, etc., coming right along, and the place will soon be as noted for its fruit as it now is for its stock.
  
  Mr. Griswold is a Republican, has been assessor, and has also held various school offices, taking a leading part in local affairs, and it is worthy of note that he was assessor when Lyons, Lincoln, Lac-qui-parle, Redwood and Yellow Medicine counties, were all included in Redwood county. He was also sheriff of Redwood county before it was divided, also deputy sheriff one term.
  
  Portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Griswold will be found on another page of this volume.
  
  

Details of Charles Perry's family with Jane Braughton