Cornelius G. Briody was born on November 18, 1889 to Samuel and Catherine Black Briody. He attended Dickinson High School and graduated from Saint Peter’s College with a Bachelor of Arts on June 18, 1913 at the same ceremony Joseph P. Tumulty, secretary to President Woodrow Wilson, was awarded an honorary Doctor of Law.  In 1914, Briody received his Master of Arts from Saint Peter’s. He worked as a teacher in West Hoboken High School.

On October 23, 1918, Briody entered the United States Army from the Eighth District of Jersey City. Together with other draftees, he received final instructions from Frank M. Mariens and Charles A. Taltam before departing on a train from Pennsylvania Railroad in Jersey City to Fort Du Pont in Delaware City, Delaware, where he was officially inducted into the United States Army on October 25, 1918. He served with Battery A of the 35 Artillery until December 2, 1918 when, suffering from pneumonia, he was transferred to the Army medical facility in Schenectady, New York, where he died on December 14, 1918.

Private Briody’s name is inscribed on the Saint Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church War Tribute, which stands in the churchyard at Pavonia and Baldwin avenues in Jersey City. The inscription on a tablet of cast bronze on a granite shaft reads Pro Deo Et Patria.  The tablet  was erected by the parishioners of St. Joseph’s Parish on October 9, 1921 in honor of the 661 members of St. Joseph’s Parish who answered their country’s call in World War I from 1917 – 1919, and to perpetuate the memory of the men who died that liberty might live.

Private Briody’s name is also inscribed on the Dickinson High School War Monument that was dedicated on November 11, 1922, as well as on the Hudson City War Monument, unveiled on July 4, 1922 at Central and Booraem avenues in Jersey City.