Briggs, Samuel

Born: 1785-07-11 Massachusetts

Died: 1870-03-02 Delavan, Illinois

Born in Dighton, Massachusetts, Samuel Briggs was a school teacher and justice of the peace. In May 1807, he married Sarah Bunn, with whom he had twelve children. He was drafted for the War of 1812, but never called into service. In 1840, he and his family moved to Logan County, Illinois. They lived there for five years before moving to Delavan in Tazewell County, Illinois. Briggs taught school for a total of forty-seven years, and worked as a justice of the peace in Tazewell County for twelve years. Although originally a Congregationalist, in 1850 he helped found Delavan's Methodist Episcopal Church and remained with the church until his death. In 1860, he owned real estate valued at $1,000 and personal property valued at $500.

Massachusetts, U.S., Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2011); U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Tazewell County, IL, 98; History of Tazewell County Illinois (Chicago: Chas. C. Chapman, 1879), 437; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Tazewell County, IL, 228; Gravestone, Prairie Rest Cemetery, Delavan, IL; The Weekly Pantagraph (Bloomington, IL), 9 March 1870, 3:4.