The family had founded and operated Riggs Bank, which financed Samuel Morse's invention of the telegraph in 1845 and lent $16 million to the United States to fund the Mexican–American War.

It is said he is another Jesse, built like him, a football fighter of his spirit and just as tricky as the big guard ...[2]By 1895, Riggs weighed 211 pounds and was 6-feet, 1-inch in height.

After graduating from Princeton, Riggs married Miss Laura Lanman, of Hartford, Connecticut, and the couple traveled to Scotland for their honeymoon.

[5] Riggs was a friend of John D. Rockefeller Jr., and the two were observed by reporters traveling to Philadelphia in 1907 in a new 60–65 horsepower (48 kW) Isotta Fraschini limousine.

[9] Riggs and his family lived for many years on a 150-acre (0.61 km2) estate in Stevenson, Maryland, in Green Spring Valley.

"[4] Riggs was a horse breeder and was believed to have contracted the disease in the stables of his country home in the Green Springs Valley.