James Briggs

Born: August 1828 in England

Died: 1877 between Fairview and Salina, Sevier County, Utah

Married: Hannah Smith on June 10, 1850 in Manchester, England

Children: William, Ann, Sarah, John, Eliza, Robert, James

Relationship to Me: 4th Great Grandfather (Graham Branch)

Information on James Briggs has been quite difficult to find. I have not yet found an exact birth date for him, nor have I found the names of his parents. He married Hannah Smith in 1850, and together the two had seven children, four of whom survived to adulthood. It seems as though he and his family made the journey from England to Utah sometime in the early 1870's. This time frame makes immigration and emigration information difficult to obtain, since after the railroad reached Utah in 1868, records were no longer as meticulously kept about who had emigrated to the territory. He, Hannah, and their children, lived in Fairview. In 1877 there was a drought and James set out for Salina in search of water to bring back to his family. Somewhere between the two towns he had died on the road. Some passersby discovered his body and buried it along the roadside.