Griffith Griffith (1823 – 1889) was the founder of Penryn, California, and the proprietor of the Penryn granite quarries. Biography Griffith Griffith was born December 8, 1823, at Ty Gwyn, Llanllyfni, Carnarvonshire, North Wales, the son of David and Mary (Roberts) Griffith. David Griffith was a superintendent of a large slate quarry. He died young leaving seven children. Griffith, being 14 years old, performed hard, back-breaking labor on the farm for the next five years to help his mother who was burdened by heavy taxes and high rents. At the age of 19, he went to work at the slate quarry in Penrhyn where his father had worked, and soon became a foreman over 30 men. In June 1847, Griffith immigrated to the United States. His first jobs were with quarry companies in Massachusetts and Connecticut. After hearing about the great quantities of gold in California, Griffith decided to try his luck as a miner. Upon landing in San Francisco on April 14, 1853, he went straightaway to Coloma where gold was first discovered. Later he went to Mormon Island and Negro Hill hoping for better luck. Along the banks of the South Fork of the American River, the experienced quarryman viewed the immense boulders and bedrock granite as showing promise of a vocation more suitable to his talents and more profitable than that of a gold miner. His experience with granite impressed businessmen, and soon Griffith obtained contracts for his own business. He thus became the pioneer of granite for building purposes in California. California Granite Company In 1853, Griffith established his first quarry at Big Gulch, which was near Mormon Island and Folsom. The granite there was used for all buildings of importance in the State, such as the Adams & Co.’s Express, Sacramento, and fortifications at Fort Alcatraz and Fort Point in San Francisco. The granite was shipped by rail from Folsom to Sacramento over the recently completed Sacramento Valley Railroad, California's first railroad. Wildwood Quarry With the extension of the Sacramento Valley Railroad, which was the Sacramento, Placer, and Nevada Railroad, Griffith moved his operations to Wildwood Station, north from Folsom in what is now Granite Bay, California. It was opened on July 16, 1862, the first quarry in Placer County. Demand for the cut granite in the San Francisco Bay Area and elsewhere was steadily increasing and these early railroads made delivery of massive granite