- George N. Briggs
Infobox Governor
name = George Nixon Briggs
order = 19th
office = Governor of Massachusetts
term_start = January 1844
term_end =January 11 ,1851
lieutenant =John Reed, Jr.
predecessor =Marcus Morton
successor =George S. Boutwell
birth_date = birth date|1796|4|12|mf=y
birth_place =Adams, Massachusetts
death_date = death date and age|1861|9|11|1796|4|12|mf=y
death_place =Pittsfield, Massachusetts
party = Whig
spouse = Harriet Briggs
profession =Lawyer
religion =Baptist
order2 = Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromMassachusetts 's 7th and 9th district
term_start2 = 1831
term_end2 = 1833 (9th)March 4 ,1833 -March 3 ,1843 (7th)
predecessor2 =Henry W. Dwight (9th)George Grennell, Jr. (7th)
successor2 = William Jackson (9th)Julius Rockwell (7th)George Nixon Briggs was a member of the Whig Party and seven-term Governor of the
U.S. state ofMassachusetts , serving from 1844 to 1851.He was born in
Adams, Massachusetts onApril 12 ,1796 . His parents were Allen Briggs (b.Cranston, Rhode Island , 1756) and Nancy Brown, ofHuguenot descent. When seven years of age moved with his parents toManchester, Vermont , and, two years later, toWhite Creek, New York . He attended the public schools there. He moved toLanesboro, Massachusetts in 1814; there he was apprenticed to the hatter’s trade. He studied law, being admitted to the bar in 1818, and commenced practice in Lanesboro. He married Harriet Hall of Lanesboro in 1818; their children were Harriet, George, and Henry. He was the register of deeds forBerkshire County, Massachusetts from 1824 to 1831. He was elected town clerk in 1824, was appointed chairman of the board of commissioners of highways in 1826.At the age of 14, during the
Second Great Awakening , which was especially strong inUpstate New York , he experienced a conversion experience and joined theBaptist faith. He remained committed to religious ideals, for instance objecting to Congressional sessions that stretched into Sunday and abjuring alcohol.Briggs was elected representing a Massachusetts district, to the twenty-second through the twenty-fourth-Congresses as an
Anti-Jacksonian , and as a Whig to the twenty-fifth throughtwenty-seventh Congress es, serving fromMarch 4 ,1831 toMarch 3 ,1843 . In the Twenty-sixth Congress, he was the chairman of the Committee on Public Expenditures, and of the Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads during the Twenty-seventh Congress. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1842. He moved to Pittsfield in 1843 and served asGovernor of Massachusetts from 1844 to 1851. He resumed the practice of law in Pittsfield. He was a member of the State constitutional convention in 1853. He was a judge of the court of common pleas from 1853 to 1858. He was appointed in 1861 as a member of a commission to adjust differences between the United States and New Granada. Briggs was accidentally killed in Pittsfield, Massachusetts onSeptember 11 ,1861 when a gun discharged, and was buried in the Pittsfield Cemetery.References
* Giddings, Edward Jonathan. "American Christian Rulers", pp. 61-9. New York: Bromfield & Company, 1890.
* Richards, William Carey. "Great in goodness: A memoir of George N. Briggs, Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, from 1844-1851." Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1866. Reprint, New York, Sheldon and Company (1867).
*CongBio|B000829
* [http://www.mass.gov/statehouse/massgovs/gbriggs.htm Official Commonwealth of Massachusetts Governor Biography]External links
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