George H. Griffin was an African-American born into slavery in Baltimore, Maryland in 1849. In 1874, as a free man, Griffin came to work for Samuel L. Clemens. Details of Griffin's early life remain largely unknown, but there is much information about Griffin's later life, primarily from Clemens's letters and unpublished memoirs. For example, according to Clemens' unpublished manuscript A Family Sketch, Griffin "was a Maryland slave by birth; the Proclamation set him free, & as a young fellow he saw his fair share of the Civil War as body servant to General Devens".