Calaveras County Biographies

SAMUEL WALLACE BRIGGS

Submitted by Kathy Sedler, Jan. 2005

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a rancher southwest of Borden, was born in Howard County, Missouri.  His father, 
S. G. Briggs, was a minister of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church of Missouri, 
and died in Amador County, California, in 1875, at the age of seventy-six years. 
His mother, Nancy Wallace Briggs, died the same year, at the age of sixty-eight 
years.  Our subject lived at home, until 1849, and then with his brother, E. M. 
Briggs, in the company of Captain Bess, crossed the plains for California by the 
old emigrant line to Salt Lake, and then north by Headspith Cut-off, landing at 
the Peter Lassen ranch. They dug their first gold at Redding’s diggings, now 
Shasta City, and the first day made thirteen dollars and three “bits.”  Hen then 
followed mining until 1853, when he was married at Santa Clara, to Miss Anna A. 
Hope, a native of Kentucky.  He then followed farming for about two years, when 
he returned to the mines in the spring of 1855, and his was the first white 
family to settle at West Point, Calaveras County.  He was elected assessor and 
tax collector of the West Point district, holding the office for many years, and 
until the office and district were abolished.  He was then appointed Deputy 
Sheriff, under B. K. Thorn, for a period of four years.  He next mined and kept 
a boarding house at Mosquito Gulch, and Sheep Ranch, both mining settlements, 
until 1881, when he came to Borden and took up land for farming purposes.  He 
now rents 800 acres, all of which he sows to grain.
	Mr. and Mrs. Briggs have four children:  William Samuel, Flores 
Belle, Ruth Wallace and Eugene C.
 
Memorial and Biographical History of the counties of Fresno, Tulare and Kern, 
California - Chicago, The Lewis Publishing Company, 1892 – pp 772-773