Griffin was the name of a 17th century ship known to have sailed between England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 and English settlements in Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

. Several historical and genealogical references show the Griffin making such journeys in 1633 and 1634. The 1633 journey left at Downs, England

South Downs

The South Downs is a range of chalk hills that extends for about across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen Valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, near Eastbourne, East Sussex, in the east. It is bounded on its northern side by a steep escarpment, from whose...

 and landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts on September 3. This 1633 journey carried religious dissidents, including Thomas Hooker

Thomas Hooker

Thomas Hooker was a prominent Puritan colonial leader, who founded the Colony of Connecticut after dissenting with Puritan leaders in Massachusetts...

, and others totaling 200 people. The ship Griffin weighed in at 300 tons and she saw the birth of at least one child during the 1633 voyage.

There are at least several other ships known to have used the name Griffin in the following centuries. Most if not all such non-17th-century references probably refer to another vessel carrying the same name.