It is apparent that Griffin was more or less a professional soldier, who was aged 15 years when the war was declared on Spain in 1740. The war with Spain soon merged into the war with France, hardly interrupted by the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in the year of 1748 and ending only in the fall of Quebec in 1759 and of Montreal the following year. At that time Griffin was 34 years old and a seasoned military veteran.
    It has been wisely observed that this series of battles on the North American continent was a schooling ground for the American Revolution. The American Colonials were schooled in warfare by the English whom they were serving, and the State of Connecticut was depended upon by the British to supply necessary provisions for his soldiers. It was this training which enabled Connecticut to serve as the "Provisions State" during the American Revolution. Jonathan Trumbull, great-great grandson of Connecticut Governor Jonathan Trumbull, wrote in his biography of his famed ancestor, who was governor during the American Revolution, "During all those twenty years the little colony of Connecticut may be said to have kept herself on a war footing; and her soldiers were present in greater or smaller numbers in almost every engagement in those long wars. By the irony of fate, the very services of the colonies, which should have led the Mother Country to recognize the American as brothers in race as well as brothers in arms, led, instead to the War of the Revolution, the clouds of which began to gather soon after the War with France, which was not officially ended until the treaty of Paris in 1763."
    The great financial strains of this warfare which Britain had to assume was one of the primary reasons that England attempted to tax the Amen can Colonies. This issue of taxation without representation was an American rallying point, which helped crystallize the move to overthrow the mother country.
    At about the time of the declaration of the war with Spain, the Griffin house on Five Mile Hill was listed as one of the places for posting meeting notices of the Oxford Congregational Society. This would indicate that the Lieutenant came from a socially and economically prominent local family. This was presumably the house on the present Moose hill, which was built by Silas Sperry.