Harry Griffy Tolliver

Harry Griffy Tolliver was born in Charleston, West Virginia in 1880 and lived much of his early life in New Lexington, Ohio. He attended the Ohio State University and subsequently graduated from Yale Law School in 1908. Following his graduation he stayed in New Haven, practicing law and serving as assistant corporation counsel to the city. He was heavily involved in local politics, and was elected as Ward 19 Alder in 1921, making him the first Black person elected to the New Haven Board of Alders. He served as chair of the Aldermanic Committees on Street Lighting and Ordinances and represented his ward on the Republican Ward Committee. From 1915 until his death in 1927 he was also a Justice of the Peace. In addition to his political involvement, he was a member of the New Haven Teachers’ Retirement Board and the New Haven County Bar Association, and a trustee of Immanuel Baptist Church. His wife, Ethel Jones Tolliver, with whom he had four children, was also involved in local social services, working at the Department of Charities in New Haven in the 1920s and 1930s.

Tolliver died of a sudden heart attack in 1927. His wife, Ethel, died in 1937.