Ansel Briggs (3 February 1806-5 May 1881) was the Democratic Governor of Iowa from 28 December 1846 to 4 December 1850, succeeding James Clarke and preceding Stephen P. Hempstead.
Biography[]
Ansel Briggs was born in Shoreham, Vermont in 1806, and he was raised in Cambridge, Ohio. He served as township constable, deputy sheriff, and jailor of Guernsey County before unsuccessfully running for county auditor as a Whig. He moved to Andrew, Iowa in 1839 and ran a stagecoach business, and he became involved in Democratic politics and served in the territorial assembly in 1842, as Jackson County deputy treasurer from 1843 to 1844, as Sheriff of Jackson County from 1844 to 1846, and as Governor from 1846 to 1850. Briggs promised, "No banks but earth, and they well tilled," and his administration was one void of any special interests. He organized a state school system and laid the groundwork of the state's transportation infrastructure, and he mined in Colorado in 1860 and in Montana from 1863 to 1865 before moving to Council Bluffs in 1870 and cofounding Florence, Nebraska. He died in Omaha, Nebraska in 1881.