Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 6.djvu/183

 THE

��GRANITE MONTHLY,

A NEW H WIPSHIRE MAGAZINE

Devoted to Literature, Biography, History, and State Progress

��Vol. VI.

��MARCH, 1883.

��No. 6.

��HON. JAMES F. BRIGGS.

��BY HENRY M. PUTM.

��John and Nancy (Franklin) Briggs, the parents of the subject ot this sketch, were of that class of sturdy and ambitious working people, who, finding themselves unable to overcome the difficulties that surrounded them in their homes in the old world, have had the courage to seek among stran- gers in this country a chance to im- prove their condition. They were factory operatives at Bun', Lancashire county, England, where their son, James F., was born, October 23, 1827. They were intelligent, fairly educated, and able to command there such com- forts and privileges as are within the reach of the best class of skilled work- ing men of the British Isles, but the reports of broader opportunities and better returns for industry and skill in America, induced them, in January, 1829, to emigrate, and after a rough voyage of more than seven weeks they landed with their small property and son in Boston, March 4. Going direct to Andover, Mass., the father found employment in a woolen factory there ; but soon after accepted a better position in Saugus, and a few months later removed to Amesbury, where the family lived until 1836. In the fall of that year Mr. Briggs, in company with two brothers, purchased a woolen mill at Holderness, now Ashland, N. H., and having established his home near by, commenced business on his own account in the manufacture of woolen cloths.

��The mill wras | lital in-

vested in it very limited, and the few operatives were mostly members of the proprietors' families. Among them was the boy James, then a lad nine years of age, who had begun, before the re- moval from Massachusetts, to contri- bute to the support of the family by working with his father in the mill For the next five years he was con- tinuously employed in the factory ; but his leisure time was devoted to books, and with the help of his parents, who were disposed to give him every advantage in their power, he acquired a fair elementary education. The fac- tory, upon which the resources of the family depended, had prospered dur- ing the time, and, at the age of four- teen, the boy's ambition was gratified by his being sent one term to the academy at Newbury, Vt., and subse- quently to Tilton. His expenses at these institutions were paid from his earnings in the mill ; but being an ex- pert operative, able to take the wool from the fleece and convert it into finished cloth, he earned enough to meet his bills one or more terms every year until 1848, when he arranged to take another important step toward the goal of his youthful ambition (which was to become a member of the bar), by entering the law office of Hon. William C. Thompson, at Ply- mouth, as a student. But before this plan could be carried out great afflic- tions, which would have forever dis

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