Stephen Morrell Griswold

Born in Windsor, Connecticut, in 1835, he moved to Brooklyn as a teenager and went on to work in the jewelry trade. He joined Plymouth Church in 1851 and remained closely connected to it for decades, giving him a front-row view of one of the most famous Protestant congregations in America.

He later served in the New York State Senate, representing Brooklyn's 3rd district in 1886 and 1887. Alongside his public life, he was part of a well-traveled and literate household: his wife Louise published A Woman's Pilgrimage to the Holy Land after their journey abroad, a trip remembered in part because they traveled with other American tourists in the era Mark Twain later wrote about.

He is best remembered as the author of Sixty Years with Plymouth Church, a reflective historical memoir published late in life. The book draws on long personal experience to preserve the people, stories, and atmosphere of the church community he knew so well.