A Long Time Ago/24 Briggs

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Briggs

This page is part of A Long Time Ago: A History of the Atkins-Paynter and Allied Families, the chunked book edition on the Wally Atkins Family Wiki.

  • Book section: Briggs
  • Page range in the book: 181-183
  • Chunk order: 24 of 36

This section has been lightly cleaned and reconstructed from the transcript seam where the Briggs material begins clearly. It preserves the strongest readable Briggs material relevant to the Nicholson, Myrick, Rivers, Ellington, Paynter, and later Atkins branch.

Source note

  • Book: A Long Time Ago: A History of the Atkins-Paynter and Allied Families
  • Recovered transcript source used: Briggs material visible in `025-tucker.md`
  • Editorial note: the nominal Tucker transcript file carries Nicholson material before the real Briggs section begins, so this page is built from the recovered Briggs start rather than the misleading file boundary

Cleaned import

The Briggs branch matters in this book because it enters the line through Sarah Briggs, wife of Joshua Nicholson, and from there feeds the same maternal-side network that later runs through Myrick, Rivers, Ellington, Paynter, and the later Atkins branch.

Early Briggs background

The chapter says the Briggs family was descended from an ancient family of that name in Salle, Norfolk, England. It begins with Henry Briggs, the noted mathematician, born in 1560/61 at Worley Wood in the parish of Halifax, Yorkshire.

The chapter describes him as a scholar of St. John's College, Cambridge, later a professor at Gresham College in London, and eventually professor of astronomy at Oxford. It also says he was an active member of the Virginia London Company in 1619.

The Virginia Briggs branch

The chapter then turns to a later Henry Briggs of Surry County, Virginia, who first appears in the Virginia records in 1656. It says he married, first, around 1661/62, Mary Flood, daughter of Colonel John Flood.

Henry Briggs served as Captain of Militia in Surry County. His will, dated September 26, 1681, was probated in 1686. The chapter names children of Henry and Mary including:

  • Henry
  • Charles
  • Samuel
  • George
  • Marie

Sarah Briggs and Joshua Nicholson

The key family-relevant point in the chapter is the marriage of Sarah Briggs to Joshua Nicholson. The book says they had children including:

  • Elizabeth
  • Lucy, who married Colonel Howell Edmunds
  • Fanny, who became the second wife of Owen Myrick
  • Joshua Jr., who married Mary Kirby
  • Sarah, who married a Thorpe

This is one of the most important crossover points in the maternal-side network.

The line forward

The chapter makes the lineal importance explicit. It says that Elizabeth, daughter of Sarah Briggs and Joshua Nicholson, married John Rivers. Their daughter Betsy (Elizabeth) Rivers married John Ellington. Their daughter Frances Ellington married Thomas Paynter. Frances and Thomas were the parents of Adelia Paynter, who married Joseph Henry Atkins.

It also says that Fanny Briggs Nicholson became the second wife of Owen Myrick, showing again how closely the Briggs, Nicholson, Myrick, and Rivers lines were interwoven.

Why Briggs matters

The Briggs chapter matters because it shows another major support beam in the maternal-side structure. Through Sarah Briggs and her children, the chapter helps explain how the later Ellington-Paynter-Atkins branch is tied into a broader web of neighboring Virginia and North Carolina families.

Context notes

Related pages

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