Click Here to Return to Milestones
The husband of Mrs. Minerva Thomas Griffiths, who lived with her daughter Mrs. Leon 0. Jeffers at 1328 3rd Avenue, New Brighton was one of four men who carried the mortally wounded Abraham Lincoln from Ford's Theatre in Washington to the little building directly across the street where he died as a result of the wound inflicted by an assassin's bullet.
Mr. Jabez Griffiths, who ran away from home when only 16 years of age to enlist as a bugler in Thompson's Battery C. Independent Pennsylvania Light Artillery, along with three other soldier boys, was sitting in the balcony of the theatre near Lincoln's box when a shot rang out, a woman screamed and the four young soldiers, on leave from Camp Barry, rushed to the side of the wounded president. (Jabez Griffiths was not married at the time). The other soldiers names were Jacob J. Boles, North Versailles Township; John Corey, who drowned in the Allegheny River; William Sample who died of burns; and Jabez Griffiths who died in 1898.