March 27, 2026
Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry writes more about artificers and their key role supporting the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.
Today I continue with my series “Unsung Revolutionary War Heroes: The Corps of Artificers,” exploring a specialized group of highly skilled craftsmen, mechanics, and other proficient tradesmen utilized during the American Revolutionary War to manufacture, supply, and maintain essential resources for the war effort.
To recap: In Part One I introduced the Corps of Artificers using examples of a regiment of artillery artificers under the direction of Colonel Flower.
The subject for today focuses on “Thayer’s Company of Carpenters” organized under Captain Jedidiah Thayer (1743-1788). He served in the military at West Point and was lieutenant of the 25th Continental Regiment, and captain in the Quartermaster General’s Department under Thaddeus Kosciusko (1746-1817) during construction of fortifications at West Point.
Captain Thayer, reporting to Colonel Jeduthan Baldwin, appears on payrolls alongside joiners, shipbuilders, masons, and carpenters, like this one dated December 1778.
Here is an advertisement for carpenters, smiths, and masons needed for Continental Service, placed by Captain Thayer, along with Captain Jacob Low of Ipswich and Captain Ezra Eaton of Malden.
Scituate, Massachusetts, ship builder Micah Stetson (1754-1838) served as a foreman. Several of Micah’s relations served with him and I will cover those connections later.
The master carpenters and ship builders who served in the Corps of Artificers unit were also skilled in cabinetmaking, and some made furniture during the winter months. The merchants acted as collaborators to keep them employed.
Evidence of their work is still around today in private collections and museums, and a few items have gone to the auction block.
One important collection of family papers contains an extraordinary furniture journal written in the first part of the 20th century by Micah Stetson’s great-granddaughter Elizabeth “Lizzie” Florence Briggs (1853-1940), born to shipbuilder Harrison Otis Briggs and Hannah Elizabeth (Stetson) Briggs.
Lizzie married Andrew Gerrish Webster (1846-1939), son of David Locke Webster and Johanna Rich (Rider) Webster.
Here is a photograph of Lizzie and her husband Andrew from 1938.
Lizzie’s journal, titled “History of Old Furniture That I Love & Why I Love It,” stands out as a unique collection blending family history, detailed records of furniture, descriptions of room arrangements, and personal stories about relatives.
In her journal Lizzie describes a desk made by artificer Micah Stetson, gifted to her when she was a young girl.
Here is the entry from her journal entitled “The Micah Stetson Desk.”
“The desk that I gave to my grandson, Andrew Webster, which is in the living room of his house, was given to use by my grandfather [Alpheus] Stetson’s brother, Ebenezer [Stetson], called Uncle Eben by the family and Deacon Eben by his fellowship, even as he was for a great many years a prominent deacon of the old Unitarian Church in Norwell [Massachusetts].
“He said, ‘My father’s desk, remember Micah Stetson,’ and I always valued it very highly indeed, as I did his affection.”
Eben shows up in the pension files writing a testimony of Micah’s service, in which he states Micah was “a soldier and artificer.” The application was for Micah’s widow Sarah.
Micah Stetson was born in Scituate, Massachusetts, to Jonah and Elizabeth (Hatch) Stetson. He married Mayflower descendant Sarah Copeland (1756-1842), daughter of Elizabeth (Tolman) Copeland and Joseph Copeland, a direct line to John and Priscilla (Mullins) Alden.
Besides his service in the Corps of Artificers, Micah is recorded as a “Minute Man” on the Patriot to Passenger Bridge Project List and marched to the alarm at Lexington. He was a corporal in Captain Joseph Stetson’s company.
His complete service records are referenced in Mayflower Families Through Five Generations: Descendants of the Pilgrims Who Landed at Plymouth, Mass., December 1620, published by the General Society of Mayflower Descendants.
Lizzie’s uncle Lloyd Vernon Briggs (1830-1911) and his son Lloyd Vernon Briggs Jr. (1863-1941) compiled an extensive history and genealogy of the allied ship building families of the Scituate area.
One important publication is History of Shipbuilding on North River, Plymouth County, Massachusetts: With Genealogies of the Shipbuilders, and Accounts of the Industries Upon Its Tributaries, 1640 to 1872.
An interesting tidbit concerns Lizzie’s great-grandfather, Captain Ichabod Thomas Sr. (1733-1788), who was the master builder for the Beaver, one of the famous tea ships of Boston Harbor.
The Beaver was built at the Brick Kiln Yard at Pembroke, Massachusetts, commissioned by Quaker merchant William Rotch of Nantucket in 1772.
Captain Hezekiah Coffin, a Quaker mariner, was in command of the Beaver the night of the original Boston Tea Party. After dropping off sperm whale oil to London, Captain Coffin was to transport British East India Company tea to Boston. The Beaver held 112 chests of tea when she arrived at Griffin’s Wharf in Boston on Wednesday, 15 December 1773 – the rest is history.
Below is a daguerreotype of Lizzie’s father Harrison (1824-1881), son of Cushing Otis Briggs and Mercy Little (Thomas) Briggs.
Cushing Briggs did his apprenticeship with master shipbuilder Ichabod Thomas Jr. and married his daughter Mercy. The children born from this marriage would make the Briggs ship-building empire.
In this next photo we see: (looking through the window at her three children) Micah Stetson’s granddaughter Hannah Elizabeth (Stetson) Briggs (1828-1881), wife of Harrison Otis Briggs; (from left to right) Ella Stetson Briggs (1849-1939), who married George Andrew Thayer; Franklin Harrison Briggs (1860-1930); and Elizabeth “Lizzie” Florence Briggs (1853-1940), who married Andrew Gerrish Webster.
Stay tuned for more!
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Note on the header image: Colonel Benjamin Flower, artificer, by Charles Willson Peale and James Peale. Credit: Star Spangled Banner Flag House Museum, Baltimore.
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