An Illustrated History of the State of Washington, by Rev. H.K. Hines, D.D., The
Lewis Publishing Co., Chicago, IL. 1893

B.F. BRIGGS, one of the oldest financiers in the city of Seattle, was born in
Freetown, Massachusetts, July 19, 1832. His parents, Franklin and Sarah
(Hathaway) Briggs, were natives of the same State, their ancestry dating back to
the pioneer settlement. Franklin Briggs was a seafaring man and a master of
sailing vessels for about forty years. The subject of this sketch was educated
in the schools of the old Bay State, and at the age of eighteen years made his
first cruise at sea. He became Master at the age of twenty years, and in 1853
started for California via the Nicaragua route. He embarked from New York upon
the old steamship "Constitution," and re-embarked upon the "Golden Gate" upon
the Pacific coast. Duly arriving in San Francisco, he was then employed as
Master of a small schooner in running about the bay and up the Sacramento river.
After three years of service he took charge of the Rincon Point warehouse in San
Francisco, and remained as superintendent for five years, when he engaged in the
grain commission business with Captain E.G. Lamb, and continued until 1869, when
the firm dissolved. Mr. Briggs was married in San Francisco, in 1868, to Miss
Rebecca Horton, a native of Illinois and daughter of Dexter Horton, a pioneer of
Seattle. In December, 1809, Mr. Briggs removed to Seattle at the solicitation of
Dexter Horton, to act as cashier in the establishment of Mr. Horton's private
bank. Mr. Briggs continued as the trusted cashier for a period of twenty years,
with barely a week's cessation from the continuous discharge of duty. In the
fall of 1889 Mr. Briggs resigned from the bank and became the cashier in charge
of Mr. Horton's private financial interests, and superintendent of the Seattle
and New York business blocks, he is also one of the executors of the estate of
P.H. Lewis, deceased, and is the trusted director in other financial matters. He
is largely interested in the Capitol Mining Company, in Stevens county, and the
Industry mine in King county. Both of these are iron mines possessing flattering
prospects. He also owns 200 acres of land on Lake Washington, with one-quarter
of a mile water front, and 300 acres three miles north of the lake, besides
valuable improved residence and business property in the city of Seattle. The
first Mrs. Briggs deceased in 1875, leaving three children: Ida, Alford and
Laura. Mr. Briggs was married in Seattle, in 1878, to Miss Sarah Griffith,
native of Pennsylvania. This union has been blessed by four children Franklyn,
Clarence E., Clyde and Herbert. Socially Mr. Briggs affiliates with the F. &
A.M. Politically he is a Republican, "first, last and all the time," but in no
sense a politician, and, save for serving one term as member of the City
Council, he has strenuously declined every political preferment:

Submitted to the WA. Bios Project in January 2004 by Jeffrey L. Elmer

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Notice: These biographies were transcribed for the Washington Biographies
Project. Unless otherwise stated, no further information is available on the
individual featured in the biographies.