The first Governor of Iowa under its State organization, was Ansel Briggs, who, like his two immediate successors, was a son of that wonderful nursery of progress, New England. He was the son of Benjamin Ingley Briggs and Electa his wife, and was born in Vermont, February 3, 1806. His boyhood was spent in his native State, where, in the common schools, he received a fair education, improved by a term spent at the academy of Norwich. In his youth, about the year 1830, with his parents, he removed to Cambridge, Guernsey County, Ohio, where he engaged in the work of establishing stage lines, and where, as a Whig, he competed with John Ferguson, a Jackson Democrat, for the office of county auditor and was defeated. In his twenty-fourth year he married a wife, born the same day and year as himself, of whom he was soon bereft. Before leaving Ohio he married his second wife, Nancy M., daughter of Major Dunlap, an officer of the war of 1812.

     In 1836, removing from Ohio, he joined that hardy band, so honored here to-day, the pioneers of Iowa, and settled with his family at Andrew, in Jackson County. Here he resumed his former business of opening stage lines, sometimes driving the stage himself, and entering into contracts with the postoffice department for carrying the United States mails weekly between Dubuque and Davenport, Dubuque and Iowa City, and other routes.

     On coming to Iowa he affiliated with the Democrats, and on their ticket, in 1842, was elected a member of the Territorial House of Representatives from Jackson County, and subsequently sheriff of the same county. On the formation of the State government, he at once became a prominent candidate for Governor. His competitors for the Democratic nomination were Judge Jesse Willliams and William Thompson. The question above all others dividing the parties in Iowa in that day was that of banks, favored by the Whigs, and opposed by the Democrats. A short time before the nominating convention met, Briggs, at a banquet, struck a responsive chord in the popular heart by offering the toast, “No banks but earth, and they well tilled,” a sententious appeal to the pride of the producer and the prejudice of the partisan, which was at once caught up as a party cry, and did more to secure its author the nomination for Governor than all else.

     The convention was held at Iowa City on Thursday, September 24, 1846, and assembled to nominate State officers and two Congressmen. It was called to order by F. D. Mills, of Des Moines County. William Thompson, of Henry County, presided, and J. T. Fales, of Dubuque, was Secretary. The vote for Governor in the convention stood: Briggs, sixty-two; Jesse Williams, thirty-two; and William Thompson, thirty-one. The two latter withdrew, and Briggs was then chosen by acclamation. Elisha Cutler, Jr., of Van Buren County, was nominated for Secretary of State; Joseph T. Fales, of Linn, for Auditor, and Morgan Reno, of Johnson, for Treasurer. S. C. Hastings and Shepherd Leffler were nominated for Congress. The election was held October 28, 1846, the entire Democratic ticket being successful. Briggs received 7,626 votes, and his competitor, Thomas McKnight, the Whig candidate, 7,379, giving Briggs a majority of 247.

     The administration of Governor Briggs was generally placid. Although avoiding excitement and desirous of being in harmonious accord with his party, when occasion required he exhibited an independent firmness not easily shaken. One perplexing controversy bequeathed him by his predecessors was the Missouri boundary question, which had produced much disquiet, and even a resort to arms on the part of both Iowa and Missouri.

     After the expiration of his four-years term, Governor Briggs continued his residence in Jackson County, where he engaged in commercial business, having sold out his mail contracts when he became Governor.

     By his second marriage he had eight children, all of whom died in infancy save two, and of these latter Ansel, Jr., died May 15, 1867, aged twenty-five years. John S. Briggs, the only survivor of the family, is the editor of the Idaho Herald, published at Blackfoot, Idaho Territory. Mrs. Briggs died December 30, 1847, during her husband’s term as Governor. She was an ardent Christian woman, adhering to the Presbyterian faith, and very domestic in her tastes. She was well educated and endowed by nature with such womanly tact and grace as to enable her to adorn the high estate her husband had attained. She dispensed (albeit in a log house, a form of architecture in vogue in Iowa in that day, as the mansion of the rich or the cabin of the poor) a bounteous hospitality to the stranger and a generous charity to the poor, in which gracious ministrations she was always seconded by her benevolent husband.

     In 1870 Governor Briggs removed from Andrew to Council Bluffs. He had visited the western part of the State before railroads had penetrated there, and made the trip by carriage. On that occasion he enrolled himself as one of the founders of the town of Florence, on the Nebraska side of the Missouri River, six miles above Council Bluffs, and which, for a time, disputed with Omaha the honor of being the chief town of Nebraska.

     He made a trip to Colorado during the mining excitement in 1860. After returning and spending some time at home, he went to Montana in 1863, with his son John, and a large party, remaining until 1865, when he came back.

     His last illness, ulceration of the stomach, was only five weeks in duration. He was able to be out three days before his death, which occurred at the residence of his son, John S. Briggs, in Omaha, May 5, 1881, at half past three in the morning. Governor Gear issued a proclamation the next day, reciting his services to the State, ordering half-hour guns to be fired and the national flag on the State capitol to be half-masted, during the day of the funeral. He was buried on Sunday succeeding his death.

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