From: ---
Date: Fri, Aug 29, 2014 at 3:26 PM
Subject: What I've learned about the Briggs history...
To: ---


--- and I are off to Little Compton today, where the Dean's father George Ware Briggs was born.  Last fall I researched the Briggs history and today, since we're heading down to Little Compton, it's on my mind:

Here is what I’ve learned about the Briggs family (compiled from the Dean’s own writing about history; from books seen online, such as Prominent Families of Little Compton; and Representative Men and Old Families of Southeastern Massachusetts (J.H. Beers & Co); and multiple online genealogies maintained by various branches of Briggs descendants…

Pre-16th century origins are a matter of legend and speculation.  Some say a boatbuilding clan migrated from Denmark to Ireland during the Viking era; they made a small boat called a “brig” by which name they were known.  Others say that the name came from their dwelling place by the bridge or bridges.  Our Briggs family line traces back to 16th century England.
 
1st Generation.  Our first American forebear was John Briggs, (1609-1690) was born in Darrington, York, England, son of one Henrie Briggs of Essex County.  John’s first wife was Sarah Cornell (b. 1637, d. 1661), whose brother Thomas Cornell had married John’s sister Rebecca Briggs (thus they were double in-laws).  It seems the Cornells made the crossing first and were soon followed by their siblings/in-laws, John and Sarah, who took the ship “Blessing” departing London and arriving in Boston in summer of 1635.

Very soon, John and Sarah had come under the sway of Anne Hutchinson, whose renegade ideas—that grace superseded good works—riled up the Puritan authorities. In 1638, Anne’s outspoken views got her ex-communicated from the church and expelled from the colony—the Antinomian heresies—and she was encouraged by Roger Williams to come to his new colony. 

Many followed, including John Briggs. Briggs along with 28 others purchased the Island of Aquidneck, one of the main islands forming Rhode Island (Aquidneck’s three cities being Portsmouth, Newport, and Tiverton).  In 1638, Briggs was admitted ‘freeman of Aquidneck’.

In 1639, John and 28 others signed the Civil Compact:  “We whose names are underwritten do acknowledge His Majesty, King Charles, and in his name do hereby bind ourselves into a civil body politic unto his laws according to matters of justice.”

By 1642, Briggs was ‘of Portsmouth’ and one of its founders.  His name appears on nearly every page of the Town Records of Portsmouth; he served as juryman, inspector of arms, Town Councillor, Surveyor of Lands, Special Commissioner, and Deputy to the General Assembly of the Colony, an office he held for many years.  In 1646, he bought a house and a lot. Records also show that the town was indebted to him for moneys he advanced for the Town’s benefit.

In 1662, John Briggs purchased land in or near Plymouth, MA, and married his second wife (the first having died).  But after a few years he moved back to Portsmouth and spent the rest of life there.  He and his first wife had six children.  The 5th child, William, is our forebear.

His will, dated 1690, named his son Enoch as Executor.  “To son Enoch Briggs all and every part of land and personal estate goods, chattels, debts, and money he paying all legacies.  To eldest son John Briggs, son Thomas, son William and daughter Susanna Northway, one shilling each. These children long since received their portions…”  Oof.  There’s a drama there.  I wonder what Williams ‘long-since received’ portion was.

2nd Generation.  William Briggs, (b. 1650 , d. 1716) married Elizabeth Cook.  Their property, now owned by the Coombs family, is along Shaw Road in Little Compton. 

Part of that property is now Briggs Beach (just off of 100 Shaw Road).  William may have been a captain.  It is known that he fought in King Phillips Ware in 1675.  Both he and his wife died of smallpox, and are buried in the small ‘Briggs Cemetery’ in Little Compton, off of Shaw Avenue.  How they came to move from Portsmouth to Little Compton isn’t clear, but it’s not far across the water from one island to the other and perhaps William (and other of his siblings) had already been given land across the way. 

William’s grave stone reads:  “Here lyeth the body of William Briggs Sr. Who dyed May 1716 in the 66th year of his age.  Here lyeth the body of Elizabeth, wife of William Briggs who dyed in August 1716 in the 63rd year of her age.”  They had seven children.  The 7th, Job, is our forebear.  To Job, he bequeathed “all land south of line, all of which is bordered by the sea.  To my son Job my dwelling house, all out-housing and fan I now live on….”

3rd Generation. Job Briggs (b.1718, d. 1802) married Mary Tillman.  He was most likely a farmer.  He and his wife are buried at Briggs Cemetery on Shaw Road where they lived.  They had seven children.  Their 2nd child, William, is our forebear.

4th Generation.  William Briggs (b. 1718, d. 1802) married Abishag Records.  In one online genealogy (that of Brenda & Glen Pedersen), William is listed as Captain William Briggs.  William and his family lived in Little Compton and no doubt died in Little Compton.  They had five children. The 2nd child, Richard, is our forebear.

5th Generation. Richard Briggs (b. 1751, d ?) married Anna Ware.  They, too, lived in Little Compton. I don’t know how many children they had.  One of them, William, is our forebear.

6th Generation. William Briggs (b. 1782, d. ?) married Sally Palmer.  William was a seafaring man who died, rather young, while in New Orleans.  Their only son, George, was our forebear—the father of the Dean.

7th Generation. George Ware Briggs (b. 1810, d. 1895).  George Ware Briggs was born in Little Compton.  He was a child when his father died; then he and his mother moved to Providence.  According to a 4-page biography I found in the files (source unknown), “he rose before daybreak to drive vegetables to market and yet found time to stand high in school…”  He entered Brown University at age 11 and graduated Phi Beta Kappa at age 15, in 1825!!  

For the next six years, he taught school in and around Providence, and also studied medicine for a year, with serious thoughts of joining the Brown brothers apothecary business.  Instead, he entered Harvard Divinity School, and in 1835 was graduated and ordained a Unitarian minister.  After 3 years as pastor in Fall River, he served as associate minister to the First Church in Plymouth (1837); then in 1853 to 1867  as minister of the First Church of Salem. 

During the Civil War he made many passionate speeches in opposition to slavery; and after Lincoln’s assassination, the Salem Town Council asked him to deliver a Eulogy on behalf of the town, which he did in May or June of that year.  His Eulogy is available in a reprint from Amazon.  In 1867 became minister of the Cambridgeport Parish (later the Third Congregational Society) until shortly before his death.  He retired to Plymouth in 1895, but died later that same year.  The last service he performed was the wedding of his wife’s cousin Laura Russell, who just months later sang at his funeral; in her letter to the Dean on the occasion of their 50th anniversary in 1933, she recalled those events:  “…John & I will have been married - and never can I forget his [Le Baron’s] dear father - on that day (& he had petted me since a child in the “Baby Opera Days”) His service was so lovely — and as he turned to me just before the service he said “Laura don’t be nervous — they need not have asked Dr. Du Normandie to come — for I know this will be my last service on earth and I have lived to “put it through”— and then your dear husband asked me to sing at his funeral and I did —hard as it was — for the tears were very very near …” 

George Ware Briggs was a man who touched hearts.  It seems he was not known for his learning nor for his eloquence—(despite his astonishing educational record, his graduation Phi Beta Kappa at age 15)… but rather for the simplicity and depth of his feeling, his ability to empathize.  These are evidently qualities that he passed on to his son LeBaron.
    
His biographer says of George Ware Briggs:  
“He was naturally diffident, especially in his own home, and so fearful of taking a place too large for him that he refused several calls to more important pulpits and to higher salaries.  His strength showed itself when people were in trouble, and quite as much in what he did not say as in what he said. … As a preacher, he was earnest and at times eloquent; but his greatest strength in and out of the pulpit was in seeming less a minister than a man.  …Twice a year he called on every family in his parish, and called until he found the family at home, even if he had to go seven times instead of one.  Though of small conversational skill and of unyielding principle, he made friends everywhere and kept them always.  He was not a learned man, and was still less a pedantic one.  ..For theology he had little regard; and when a reporter asked him whether he was radical or conservative, he answered, “Both.”

His habit of life was simple; and his heart—in some ways like that of a little child—could yet feel immensely without expressing what it felt in words.  If there was an emotion he could not control, it was his love of Rhode Island.  His will was so strong that he seemed to live his last five years on sheer courage yet his wishes even in his own family were as unobtrusive as if he had been the least among them.  He was a strong, loyal, single-hearted man.”

His first wife, Lucretia Bartlett, bore him 4 children, 3 surviving, the youngest of whom was Anna Ware Briggs, the Dean’s half sister.  She married George Barker and was known by the Dean’s children as Aunt Nanny.   His second wife, Lucia Jane Russell, bore him two sons:  George Russell Briggs and LeBaron Russell Briggs.  And there begins the more familiar history.  Lucia Jane Russell and George Ware Briggs are buried together in the Oak Grove Cemetery in Plymouth. [Must find their plot—it’s not with ours].

For a time, both the brothers— George R. Briggs and LeBaron R.  Briggs— were lecturers at Harvard.  George graduated in 1874, spent a year in the scientific school, and then taught mathematics there from 1875-1881.  In the fall of 1881 he moved to Plymouth and bought land suitable for growing cranberries.  Starting modestly, he increased his holdings until there were 160 acres under his management, including bogs at Indian Brook, Island Pond, Billington, Manomet, White Island, and Duck Pond. 

He was president and held the largest ownership in the Port Norris Fruit Company, a Massachusetts company with large holdings also in New Jersey.  He and his wife Helen lived in a fine house at Indian Brook, the place where Rose Briggs and her brother George Jr grew up.  But that house burned in one of the devastating forest fires—either the fire of 1934 or the fire of 1962 (I’m not sure which).