Briggs had been a sailor in Nantucket, Massachusetts then a wholesale grocer. When his novel "The Adventures of Harry Franco" was suddenly successful, he pursued a career in journalism. The publication of this humorous adventure story in 1839 was an immediate sensation and led to even his friends nicknaming him "Franco", much to his dismay. In "The Knickerbocker", Briggs began a series of humorous stories, including a serialized story that, though incomplete, was produced as the novel "The Haunted Merchant" in 1843.