Benjamin Briggs Account Book
Ship’s captain and cobbler from Scituate, Massachusetts. Includes list of ship expenses (harbor master’s fees, wages, wharf fees, provisions, carpenter and blacksmith bills, and bills for loading labor, rigging, and mending the sails), debt accounts with individuals, and accounts for making and mending shoes and boots.
In 1805-06, Captain Benjamin Briggs (1760-1834) of Scituate, Massachusetts listed the expenses of running his ship. He paid for harbor master’s fees, wages, “wharfage at St. Mary’s”, provisions, carpenter and blacksmith bills, glasses and plates, “pylotage”, loading labor, rigging, mending the sails, and more. Individuals whom he paid repeatedly were Absolom Ozbon, Daniel Wilcott, and Lewis Talon.
Between 1809 and 1820 there are various accounts with individuals who owed him for work, the use of his boy and horse, and wood or timber, for which services were sometimes exchanged. Some of the repeat customers were Ichabod Cook, Nathaniel Litchfield, and Jonathan Brown.
By 1820 the accounts are mainly for making and mending shoes and boots. The cobbler may have been one of Captain Briggs’ three sons–Billings, Paul, or James.
The collection is open for research.
Cite as: Benjamin Briggs Accounts (MS 173). Special Collections and University Archives, W.E.B. Du Bois Library, University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Acquired from Charles Apfelbaum, 1987.
Collection processed by Linda Seidman, 2003.