John Briggs Sr. (abt. 1640 - abt. 1697)

Husband of Frances (Unknown) Briggs — married about 1667 in Kingstown, Rhode Island [uncertain]

Descendants

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Disambiguation Notice: He is NOT the same man as John Briggs of Taunton, nor that man's son John Briggs, Jr also of Taunton. Nor is he the John Briggs of Portsmouth and Tiverton who married Hannah Fisher (the death date 2 July 1713 is definitely for that John and should not be ascribed to this one).

Biography

"John Briggs, the progenitor of the [Rhode Island branch of the American Briggses], settled in Kingstown, Rhode Island, where he and his wife Frances both died in 1697. He was clerk of the Kingstown military company, May 20, 1671, and on the same day took the prescribed oath of allegiance to England. He and five others bought of Awashuavett, chief sachem of Quohesett in Narragansett a tract of land, January 1, 1671. He bought fifty-seven acres of land of Richard Smith for five pounds, January 11, 1672. He was admitted a freeman in 1673 and was elected a constable in 1687. On 6 September 1687, he is cited on Gov. Andros' tax roll at Rochester (renamed later to Kingstown), Rhode Island owing a “pole” (poll) tax of 1s, and a property tax of 4s 8d, which places him as an adult resident and property landholder in Kingstown, RI on this date. ^[1] This tax roll identifies a sum total of 136 heads of house living in the roughly 22.5 square mile area associated with Kingstown, RI on this date in 1687; one consequence of this sparse population is that he would have been well acquainted with many, if not all, of the individuals identified on this list. Therefore, this tax list is a defacto definition of the people who were available to be his friends, neighbors, and allies; it would be essential to cultivate strong working relationships with these neighbors in order to survive on this frontier landscape. This cross reference tool provides hot links to peruse most of the 136 Wikitree families identified in this tax roll; families who were very frequently interconnected, or became interconnected, by marriage, over the course of their lives and throughout the ensuing generations, further binding a network of neighbors into extended families. ^[2] Just before he died he sold land to William Allen."^[3][4]

Census

Census Date: 1671

Place: Kingston, Washington County, RI

Note: Served in Public Capacity

Sources

1. ↑ Roberts, Gary Boyd; Genealogies of Rhode Island Families, Vol. II, Niles - Wilson; Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., Baltimore 1989. RI Taxes under Gov. Andros pages 592- 594.
2. ↑ Randolph Beebe; Cross Reference: Gov. Andros 1687 Rochester RI Tax Register to Wikitree profile; Wikitree Free Space Profiles, 2024.
3. ↑ William Richard Cutter, “New England Families, Genealogical and Memorial,” Third Series. Volume IV, Lewis Historical Publishing Company 1915, Copy in Harvard College Library. Page 2320.
4. ↑ Austin, John Osborne, Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island, published 1887. Reference page 25

• Briggs, Harry Tallmadge; Briggs, John Greene, The colonial ancestry of the family of John Greene Briggs, son of Job Briggs, and Patience Greene, and Isabell Gibbs De Groff, daughter of William Stoutenburgh De Groff, and Susan Hopkins, published 1940. Reference pages 292-3

Acknowledgements

This person was created through the import of CaddyAncestors.ged on 21 December 2010.

WikiTree profile Briggs-1014 created through the import of Terrass Family Tree.ged on Jul 7, 2011 by Richard Terrass. See the Changes page for the details of edits by Richard and others.

This profile was adopted and edited. Ramsey-1224 21:56, 22 December 2014 (EST)

Briggs-4047 was created by Elizabeth Hubbard through the import of EH_1969_Clarke_Line.ged on Jan 13, 2016.