He was the son of "Oou ta ta Quastu" aka Daniel John Griffin and Jenny Ratliff, who was the daughter of Richard Ratliff.
James Hicks book "Cherokee Lineages" claims that Jack Griffin was 3/4 blood Cherokee.
Uncle Looney Hicks Griffin, told the Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma, that his father Jack Griffin was "a full-blood Cherokee, and his mother (Delilah Pettit-Griffin), was a half-blood Cherokee." He was born in 1849 at the old Dwight Mission in Oklahoma. The Dwight Mission was built in the Arkansas Territory for the Old Settler Cherokee in 1820. When the Old Settlers moved into Indian Territory in 1828, it was rebuilt within their new tribal boundaries on Sallisaw Creek in Vian, Oklahoma.

The mission opened in May of 1829, and its school started taking in students in May of 1830. It was named in honor of the Reverend Timothy Dwight, and it was the first school in Oklahoma. The school was closed over one-hundred years later, in 1948.

Jack Griffin's son, Looney, stated in his biography that he was eleven years old at the beginning of the Civil War, when his father took the family to the Choctaw Nation on the Red River, where they would be safe from the invasion in the Cherokee Nation. It was only after the close of the war in 1865, that they returned to the CN, and settled in Tamaha, which was known then as Pheasant Bluff. They lived there for about four years, until about 1869/70, when they moved to a place three miles south of Webbers Falls, Oklahoma, where Jack and Delilah resided for the remainder of their lives.

Uncle Looney recalled working on the cattle ranches in Oklahoma, when he was a boy. The first outfit he rode with when he was "only a strip of a lad", was for the old Frost Starr Cattle Ranch, which was located about four miles east of Porum, Oklahoma, although the small settlement town was called Starrville at that time.

Uncle Looney then went to work for an outfit driving cattle over the old Chisholm Trail, from Texas to the Cherokee strip, and into Kansas. It was not unusual in those days for a boy to go on a cattle drive.

He recalled that "We left Muskogee, which was then just a cow town, on the 4th of July, with an outfit of about fifteen cowboys on horseback and a chuck-wagon." They rode out to Gainsville, Texas, where they picked up a herd of 1,600 head of Texas cattle, and started for the Cherokee strip.

They drove the cattle all day, until one hour before sundown, then they would stop the herd to rest. After allowing the herd to graze for an hour, the cattle would bed down until midnight while the crew also bedded down on a blanket, with a saddle for a pillow. They would take turns on patrol throughout the night, then start again at first light.

They reached their destination, and delivered the cattle at the old Tim Button ranch on about the 15th of December, which was considered a good average for the trip.

Uncle Looney added, "Of course there were no bridges in those days, therefore all streams had to be forded, or the herd was forced to swim the deeper streams."

Jack and Delilah's four children obtained an education in a pay school located in the Cherokee Nation, which cost 50 cents per month to attend. The schoolhouse was just a small log structure with a dirt floor, and the seats were split logs with the flat side up, and holes were bored into them to drive in the pole legs.

Uncle Looney stated that he stayed with a man named, Autery, and worked for him to pay for his keep, while he attended the school for two eight month terms, which was probably the average to learn to read, write, and learn arithmetic.

Jack and Delilah's children were:
1) James Daniel Griffin, Sr., b. 1853 - aft 1902
2) Saphronia G. Griffin, b. 1857 - aft 1902
3) Looney Hicks Griffin, b. May 19, 1861 - aft 1906
4) +Alice Elizabeth Griffin, b. 1872 - aft 1906

Thanks to Larry Craddock, a descendant of James Daniel Griffin for his help with this biography.