John Howell Briggs (d. 2 March 1808), member of the Convention of 1788 and member of the Council, was born probably in Sussex County sometime late in the 1750s, the son of Gray Briggs and Dorothy Pleasants Briggs. His father, a merchant and landowner, represented Sussex County in the House of Burgesses from 1754 to 1758 and later moved to Dinwiddie County.
Briggs may have studied briefly at the College of William and Mary. He served as an ensign in a cavalry troop of Sussex County militia during the last two years of the Revolutionary War. In April 1785 he received a commission as a lieutenant colonel of militia, and in August 1786 he became a justice of the peace. Briggs was elected to the House of Delegates in 1784 and served through the end of 1789. His committee assignments included Commerce, Courts of Justice, Privileges and Elections, and Propositions and Grievances, but he never obtained a major chairmanship. In March 1788 Briggs was elected one of the two county delegates to a state convention called to consider ratification of the proposed constitution of the United States. He made no recorded speech during the debates. On 25 June Briggs voted with the minority in favor of requiring constitutional amendments before ratification and then voted against the successful motion to ratify.
On 28 November 1789 the General Assembly elected Briggs to fill a vacancy on the Council of State. He took his seat on 21 December, following the end of the legislative session. Briggs served almost four years, during which the business of the Council was largely routine. He was evidently regular in attendance. In March 1793 Briggs ran for the House of Representatives from the district composed of the counties of Prince George, Southampton, Surry, and Sussex, but he lost to Carter Bassett Harrison. On 28 October 1793 he resigned from the Council, citing "my own inclination, but more my domestic Concerns." Briggs remained interested in politics, though. He supported Thomas Jefferson for president in 1800 and in November of that year was one of three commissioners to supervise the voting for presidential electors in Sussex County.
The earliest extant land tax return for Sussex County, taken in 1782, shows that Briggs then owned 3,412 acres, most of which he had inherited from his grandfather Howell Briggs. During the 1780s and 1790s Briggs sold a number of tracts in Sussex County and acquired one, leaving him with more than 1,900 acres in Sussex at the time of his death. In 1802 he purchased Mattoax, a 425-acre Chesterfield County plantation of the Randolph family, to which he moved about 1805. In the summer of 1804 Briggs made a ten-week tour of the western springs and visited several prominent state politicians whom he had known while still active in public affairs. His journal of the trip attests to his curiosity about his surroundings, his ability to play the flute and violin, and his wide acquaintance among the influential families of Virginia.
John Howell Briggs died at Mattoax on 2 March 1808. He had never married and left no will. His complicated estate was not settled until 1820.
Sources Consulted:
Biography in Henry R. McIlwaine et al., eds., Journals of the Council of the State of Virginia, 1776–1791 (1931–1982), 5:380; Land and Personal Property Tax Returns, Sussex Co., 1782–1809, Auditor of Public Accounts, Record Group 48, Library of Virginia (LVA); John P. Kaminski et al., eds., The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution: Ratification of the Constitution by the States, vols. 8–10: Virginia (1988–1993), 8:194–195, 10:1539, 1541, 1565; Briggs to Henry Lee, 28 Oct. 1793, House of Delegates, Executive Communications, State Government Records Collection, Record Group 79, LVA (quotation); Briggs, "Journal of a Trip to the Sweet Springs commencing July 23d and ending September 29th 1804," in First Resorts: A Visit to Virginia's Springs, [ed. E. Lee Shepard] (1987), 5–32; family relationships and estate settlement papers in Atkinson v. Watkins et al. (1820), Sussex Co. Court Loose Papers, box 226; death notice in Norfolk Gazette and Publick Ledger, 7 Mar. 1808.