Biography - JONATHAN BRIGGS
As furnishing an apt illustration of what may be accomplished by persistent, persevering effort with a purpose in life that purpose being the acquisition of a home surrounded with life's comforts, Jonathan Briggs may be cited. He commenced a poor boy, the son of a widow, and steadily has he pursued a straightforward course, whose efforts have compelled success. He was born in Edwards county, April 27, 1834. His father, Jonathan Brings, when a youth in England, put to sea as a sailor a calling in which five of his brothers were engaged but losing his hearing, he was compelled to abandon his first love and seek other pursuits. He soon after came to America, and for a short time followed gardening near Cincinnati, Ohio. He married Eliza Naylor, also of England, in 1833. At the time they both lived in Edwards county, he having come here in 1831 and she the following year. In September, 1833, he died at Terre Haute, Indiana, and the subject of this sketch was born the following April. Jonathan Briggs had like opportunities afforded youth forty or fifty years ago, which consisted of a short term of school each winter and much hard work - largely clearing - at all other times. Habits of economy and industry were thus fixed upon him. The old homestead selected by his parents fifty years ago is now his; nothing has ever tempted him to leave it. His widowed mother married and raised a family of children, whose interests in the home place he acquired by purchase. He was married to Sarah Ann Curtis October 1, 1857. By her he has six living children, George, Eliza, Ann, Nathan, Lee and William, and two dead - both died in infancy. Mr. Briggs is a Republican politically; a member of the Methodist Episcopal church religiously. As a farmer he is progressive, and was one of the first in this section of the country to adopt a system of tile draining.
Extracted 12 Aug 2017 by Norma Hass from 1883 A Combined History of Edwards, Lawrence, and Wabash Counties, Illinois, page 216.
