Zebina Flavius Griffin was born in Ogle County, Illinois on Nov 14 1844 to Canadian parents. They moved back to Canada when he was eight. He married Mary Harwood and entered Hillsdale College in 1877, graduating in 1881. Mary died before he completed his degree, and he married Susan Elizabeth (Libbie) Cilley in February 1881. He first preached at the Free Baptist Church at Gilbert Mills New York. “In the autumn of 1883 we were invited to meet our Foreign Mission Board in Boston with a new goal of being sent to India as missionaries. We according (sic) met the Board, were accepted and urge to go at once.” Griffin and Libbie arrived in Calcutta on Dec 31 1883. They stayed for ten years. He became Secretary and Treasurer of Keuka College in 1897, an office he held until 1903, when they returned to India. In Santipore they received help from the government to build a brick schoolhouse for the Teachers Training School, and the Industrial School. The Griffins came home to Keuka Park New York, where Griffin held several positions at Keuka College. It reopened after the union of the Baptists and the Free Baptist denominations. Griffin was a trustee and also on the Executive Committee.

Libby is the first woman to be fully ordained among the American Baptists. Her ordination was recognized in the Northern Convention after union with the Free Baptists in 1911. In 1893 she was ordained, along with Zebina, and they spent eight years in many churches in central New York. Libbie edited a missionary magazine for her denomination and from 1904 to 1909 a third Indian mission tour ensued in which she served as principal of a school for Moslems, Hindus and Christians at Santipore. She also translate gospel tracts into the Oriya language. She devoted effort and funding to Keuka College where she again served as co-pastor of a local congregation.