Griffin, Levi T. (Levi Thomas), 1837-1906

Professor of law at University of Michigan and Democratic congressman, 1893-1895.

Levi T. Griffin was the Fletcher professor of law in the University of Michigan, 1886-1897 and served a member of Congress from December 4, 1993 to March 3, 1895, filling the vacancy caused by the death of congressman John Logan Chipman.

Griffin was born in Clinton, Oneida County, N.Y., May 23, 1837. He moved with his parents to Rochester, Oakland County, Mich., in 1848. Griffin studied law at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, graduating in 1857, and was admitted to the bar in 1858. He opened a law practice in Detroit, Mich. and then entered the United States Army in August 1862 as second lieutenant. Griffin served as first lieutenant, adjutant, captain, brigade inspector, acting assistant adjutant general of the Cavalry division, and acting assistant adjutant general of the Cavalry corps, Military Division of Mississippi, and breveted major. Following the war he resumed the practice of law in Detroit. He was an unsuccessful candidate for judge of the State supreme court in 1887. In 1893 Griffin was elected as a Democrat to the Fifty-third Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of John Logan Chipman and served from December 4, 1893, to March 3, 1895. He was unsuccessful in a bid for reelection in 1894 to the Fifty-fourth Congress. Griffin resumed practicing law and served as a pension agent in 1896 and 1897. Levi T. Griffin died in Detroit, Mich., March 17, 1906 and is buried in Woodmere Cemetery.