George Nixon Briggs (12 April 1796-12 September 1861) was a member of the US House of Representatives (NR-MA 9) from 4 March 1831 to 3 March 1833 (succeeding Henry W. Dwight and preceding William Jackson) and from MA-7 from 4 March 1833 to 3 March 1843 (succeeding George Grennell Jr. and preceding Julius Rockwell), and the Whig Governor of Massachusetts from 9 January 1844 to 11 January 1851 (succeeding Marcus Morton and preceding George S. Boutwell).
Biography[]
George Nixon Briggs was born in Adams, Massachusetts in 1796, and he was raised in Manchester, Vermont and White Creek, New York. He became a lawyer back in Adams in 1818 before moving to Lanesboro in 1823 and Pittsfield in 1842. Briggs served as register of deeds for the Northern district of Berkshire County from 1824 to 1831, in the US House of Representatives from 1831 to 1843 as a pro-temperance, anti-extensionist, and pro-tariff "Cotton Whig", and as Governor from 1844 to 1851. He opposed the Mexican-American War and radical abolitionism during his tenure. Afterwards, he served as a judge of the Court of Common Pleas from 1853 to 1858 and was the Know Nothings' gubernatorial candidate in 1859. He accidentally shot himself in 1861 as he tried to pick up a gun which had fallen out of his coat in his closet.