D. Luther Briggs and Albert J. Briggs were brothers from Sackville, New Brunswick, who came to Cromwell in 1871 and set up D. L. Briggs & Company, a wholesale meat-packing firm which imported western beef by railroad. The company is described, in The Leading Business Men of Middeltown, Portland, Durham and Middlefield (1890), as “dealers in Chicago Dressed Beef, Lamb, Mutton, Pork, Lard. Hams, etc.” D. L. Briggs moved to Middletown (to a house on Washington Street), eventually becoming the mayor (1890-94). Albert Briggs remained in Cromwell, living on Main Street in an 1891 Queen Anne style house, with Stick elements, until his death in 1901. His widow, Eugenia C. Briggs, was in Europe when the First World War started in 1914. 400 American “refugees,” who had gathered in Genoa, found passage home on the steamship Principe Di Udine.