George Nixon Briggs was born in Adams, Massachusetts on April 12, 1796. He was the eleventh of twelve children of Allen Briggs, a blacksmith originally from Cranston, Rhode Island, and Nancy (Brown) Briggs, of Huguenot descent. His parents moved the family to Manchester, Vermont when he was seven, and, two years later, to White Creek, New York. The household was religious: his father was a Baptist and his mother was a Quaker, and they gave their children religious instruction from the Bible.