D. R. Griffiths

       
      D. R. Griffiths, merchant and farmer at Sale Creek, was born in South Wales, November 20, 1834, and came to America in 1864. He first settled in Steubenville, Ohio, but in a short time removed to Shamokin, Penn., and from there to Hubbard, Ohio, in October of the same year. In March, 1868, he came to Sale Creek, where he has since resided. Previous to this, in 1866, he, with nineteen others, then living in Ohio, organized a company to come to East Tennessee and lease some coal mines. They opened up the mines in the same year, and continued very successfully, considering the poor market they had, until 1880, when the company sold out to the present owners. Mr. Griffiths began working in the mines at the early age of seven, and continued this up to 1880. He then opened a store at Sale Creek, and has engaged in this business, in connection with farming, up to the present. He also deals very extensively in tan-bark; and in 1883 they handled $16,000 worth of the same, averaging per year about $5,000. What education Mr. Griffiths has was picked up by the family fireside. He began working for himself at the age of seventeen, and has accumulated considerable property by his own exertions. In 1854 he married Miss Ruth Richards, who was born in January, 1836, and who is the daughter of William and Margaret Richards, of Aberdare, South Wales. To our subject and wife ten children were born, of whom four boys and two girls are now living: William, David, Thomas, Richard, Annie (Mrs. Reese), and Ruth (Mrs. Thompson). Mr. Griffiths is a Republican in politics, and he and wife are members of the Union Church at Sale Creek, although reared Baptists.
Goodspeed's "History of East Tennessee" 1887