James A. Briggs and Robert Mitchell, brothers-in-law, were prominent in the social and political life of Marquette County, Wisconsin, during the second half of the nineteenth century. However, the focal personality around whom these family papers are formed was Emma R. Briggs (1843-?), James A. Briggs' younger sister about whom little is known. Receiving the most correspondence, Emma reflects the strength of the Briggs family bond most clearly, as she was never married but devoted her time to her relatives. Names also appearing frequently are those of Emma's sisters, Abby (Mrs. Robert Mitchell) and Lydia (Mrs. Darwin Atwood); and Mrs. James P. Rogers (Frances, or “Fanny”), a sister of Robert Mitchell. The children of the James Briggs/Robert Mitchell generation were Fannie J. Mitchell, the daughter of Robert Mitchell's brother Edward; Mary Stoyell, the daughter of his sister Jane; and Robey, Lilla, and Willie, the children of the Darwin Atwoods. Alma Atwood Ormsby, a close friend and practically adopted member of the Briggs family, was either a sister or cousin of Darwin Atwood.
JAMES A. BRIGGS, son of Alexander Ellis and Robey Briggs, was born March 7, 1836 in Whiting, Vermont. He had two elder sisters, Lydia E. (Mrs. Darwin Atwood) and Abby O. (Mrs. Robert Mitchell), and one younger sister, Emma R. In 1850, the Alexander Briggs family moved to Marquette County, Wisconsin, where the elder Briggs formed the artificial Lake Mason and on its banks founded the village of Briggsville. James received his early education at Shoreham Academy in Vermont. He completed his schooling in Portage, Wisconsin, and then assisted his father at his grist mill business, control of which young Briggs assumed on Alexander Briggs' death in the 1860s. After running the grist mill (later known as Eagle Mill) for eighteen years James sold it due to failing health, and retired to his farm, “Elm Court.” In 1877 Briggs ran as a Republican for the State Assembly seat from Marquette County that his brother-in-law Robert Mitchell had held in 1875, but Briggs was defeated by a two-to-one margin.
On November 12, 1861, Briggs married Ellen F. Gay. They had six children: Nellie, who died in infancy; Johnnie, who died in childhood; Robey, who died in early womanhood; James Ellis; Abby E. (later Mrs. D.T. Tease); and William 0. After the death of his first wife, Briggs married Margaret A. Curtis-Sherman on April 21, 1880. Margaret Briggs died on October 24, 1890. Briggs' last marriage, on September 13, 1894, was to Isabel Bowe, who survived him upon his death on December 6, 1922, in Briggsville.
ROBERT MITCHELL, JR., son of Robert Mitchell, Sr. and Mary (Freeman) Mitchell, was born June 22, 1826 in Moravia, New York. In 1845 he completed his literary education at Geneva College in Geneva, New York, and in 1850 received an M.D. degree from the University of Buffalo. In 1851 he traveled overland to California with ox teams; once there he mined on the Yuba and Feather Rivers, and returned to the East in 1854. In 1857 Dr. Mitchell settled in Portage to practice medicine, and remained there until August, 1861, when he was appointed assistant surgeon of the Tenth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry. In 1863 he was appointed surgeon of the Twenty-seventh Regiment. With both regiments he followed the course of the war through the Cumberland Gap and down the Mississippi. After the war he returned to Portage, where on April 25, 1867, he married Abby O. Briggs. A daughter of Alexander Ellis Briggs, Abby Briggs was born in Vermont in 1829, and had moved to Portage in 1853. The Mitchells' only child, Robert Ellis Mitchell, was born in Portage on March 24, 1869. In that year the Mitchells moved to a farm in Marquette County, where Dr. Mitchell farmed as well as practiced medicine. In November 1874 he was elected as a Republican to the State Assembly from Marquette County, but was defeated for re-election the following November. An attempt in 1878 to regain his seat also ended in defeat. In December 1893 Dr. and Mrs. Mitchell returned to Portage for retirement, and there Dr. Mitchell died on June 21, 1899.
