It was only nine years after the Civil War when William Briggs was born in Edwards County, Illinois. The year was 1873. The War had been a full scale conflict where Americans killed Americans in huge numbers on battlefields across the country. The topic of war, both good or bad, was something people would continue to talk about for years to come in living rooms and kitchens across America.

Countless veterans that survived the Civil War would have lived in and around places like Edwards County in the 1870’s. Young William would have grown up hearing stories told by these men or by the family members who had lost one or more sons to the cause. These stories would have been etched into the mind of young Briggs from an early age on. What happened during this time period would eventually become a valuable part of our nation’s oral history. Some of which would be passed on by Briggs himself.

In 1893, young Briggs moved north from Pinch, Illinois to Porter County, Indiana. It was sometime during this period that he boarded with the family of a son of Benjamin Crisman. Ben Crisman was an abolitionist and a conductor on the Underground Railroad who secretly helped fugitive slaves move north through the area. Each of Ben Crisman's three sons had fought in and survived the Civil War. Briggs would have learned a lot from the Crisman’s and the people living in northern Indiana during this time period.

He would have heard the stories about Indians who once lived in the area and the first white settlers that came from the east and fought them. He would have heard about the hardships these folks encountered during long Midwestern winters. Briggs would eventually go on to write about these people and the history of the area. He would write about the stagecoach years; or when the first train tracks were laid along the lakefront toward Chicago and beyond. It must have been exciting for him to hear first-person accounts from the people who were actually there.