Miner’s Companion Is His Violin

High above the mining town of Silver Plume, a rich vein of ore was discovered in the late 1860s by Clifford Griffin. This young Englishman was one of the first miners to come to the Silver Plume area. Little was known about him except that his fiancée had been found dead the eve of their wedding. Griffin came to the Rocky Mountains to enter the mining business and possibly to forget his sad past.

Griffin discovered a rich vein of ore and named his mine the Seven-Thirty. It contained mainly silver with some gold ore. The deeper the mine was developed, the richer the ore. The young Englishman soon became the wealthiest mine owner in the area. Nothing, however, caused him to forget his fiancée’s untimely death, and he withdrew socially from the other miners and their families.

On the side of the steep mountain near his mine, Griffin constructed a simple cabin. His sole companion was his violin, and after the end of the day’s work, he would stand at the front of his cabin and play. The sad music would drift down into Silver Plume, and miners and their families would come outside and look up to see the lonely musician by his cabin. Sometimes one of the miners would request a special tune. After he completed his mountainside recital, the miners would applaud, with the sound echoing off the canyon wall.

Directly in front of his cabin on a point of rock clearly visible from today’s I-70, Griffin dug a grave in the solid rock. One spring evening in 1887, he played especially well. The miners and their families applauded, and then watched him walk toward the grave. Suddenly, the sharp report of a gun reverberated through the hills. Clifford Griffin was found face down in his own grave with a bullet through the heart.

In his cabin was a note requesting that he be left in the stone grave. The miners not only followed his last instructions, but erected a granite maker over the grave with the following inscription:

CLIFFORD GRIFFIN
SON OF
ALFRED GRIFFIN ESQUIRE
OF BRAND HALL
SHROPSHIRE, ENGLAND.
BORN JULY 2, 1847.
DIED JUNE 19, 1887.
and in compliance with his own
request buried near this spot.