American politician who was the first governor of Iowa. He served from 1846 to 1850.
He attended Norwich Academy in Connecticut and later moved to Ohio where he started a stagecoach business.
After his governorship, he helped to found the town of Florence, Nebraska.
He was briefly married to Florence Carpenter but later married Nancy M. Dunlap, with whom he had eight children.
James K. Polk was the U.S. President who admitted Iowa into the union as a state, two months after Briggs became governor of the territory.
