George N. Briggs

George Nixon Briggs (April 12, 1796 – September 11, 1861^[3]) was a member of the Whig Party and served seven-terms as the 19th Governor of the U.S. state of Massachusetts, serving from 1844 to 1851.

Early life and education

Briggs was born in Adams, Massachusetts on April 12, 1796. His parents were Allen Briggs (b. Cranston, Rhode Island, 1756) and Nancy Brown, of Huguenot descent. When seven years of age moved with his parents to Manchester, Vermont, and, two years later, to White Creek, New York. He attended the public schools there. He moved to Lanesboro, Massachusetts in 1814; there he was apprenticed to the hatter’s trade. He studied law, being admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1818, and commenced practice in Lanesboro.

Religious awakening

At the age of 14, during the Second Great Awakening, which was especially strong in Upstate New York, he experienced a conversion experience and joined the Baptist faith. He remained committed to religious ideals, for instance objecting to Congressional sessions that stretched into Sunday and abjuring alcohol.

Marriage and children

Briggs married Harriet Hall of Lanesboro in 1818; their children were Harriet, George, and Henry.

Early public service career

From 1824 to 1831 Briggs was the register of deeds for the Northern district of Berkshire County, Massachusetts.^[1] He was elected town clerk in 1824, was appointed chairman of the board of commissioners of highways in 1826.

Election and service in the U.S. House of Representatives

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 through twenty-seventh Congresses, serving from March 4, 1831 to March 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.

Governor of Massachusetts

Briggs moved to Pittsfield in 1843 and served as Governor of Massachusetts from 1844 to 1851. While serving as governor, Briggs was asked to commute the death sentence of Professor John White Webster in the murder of George Parkman, a crime that took place at the Harvard Medical School in 1850. Letter writers from all over the country thought the sentence was overly harsh as there was only circumstantial evidence presented at his trial and asked Governor Brigg's to commute Webster's sentence. In the end, the governor did not commute the sentence because to do so would have appeared to have given in to the pressure of Boston Brahmins as the memory of Washington Goode, a black Bostonian seaman who had recently been hanged for a crime without clear evidence of his guilt put him in a tight position.

Later career

After serving his term as governor, Briggs 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.^[4] He was appointed in 1861 as a member of a commission to adjust differences between the United States and New Granada.

Death and Burial

On September 4, 1861^[5] Briggs was getting an overcoat out of his closet at his home in Pittsfield, when a gun fell. As Briggs was picking it up, the gun discharged and Briggs was shot.^[6] Briggs died in the morning of September 11, 1861,^[3] and was buried in the Pittsfield Cemetery.

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c d} Beers & CO., J. H. (1885), History of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, With Biographical Sketches of its Prominent Men., Volume I, New York, New York: J. H. BEERS & CO., p. 303. 
2. ^ Cooke, Rollin Hillyer (1906), Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, New York, N.Y.: The Lewis Publishing CO., p. 287. 
3. ^ ^{a b} Richards, William Carey (1867), Great in Goodness: A Memoir of George N. Briggs, Governor of The Commonwealth Of Massachusetts, From 1844 to 1851, Boston, MA: Gould and Lincoln, p. 411. 
4. ^ Beers & CO., J. H. (1885), History of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, With Biographical Sketches of its Prominent Men., Volume I, New York, New York: J. H. BEERS & CO., p. 329. 
5. ^ Richards, William Carey (1867), Great in Goodness: A Memoir of George N. Briggs, Governor of The Commonwealth Of Massachusetts, From 1844 to 1851, Boston, MA: Gould and Lincoln, p. 397. 
6. ^ Richards, William Carey (1867), Great in Goodness: A Memoir of George N. Briggs, Governor of The Commonwealth Of Massachusetts, From 1844 to 1851, Boston, MA: Gould and Lincoln, p. 398. 

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).
• George Nixon Briggs
• Official Commonwealth of Massachusetts Governor Biography

External links

• George N. Briggs at Find a Grave