Briggs-Stabler family papers

These letters may be said to begin in 1793 concerning the settlement of the family at Sandy Springs, Md. In that year Isaac Briggs was thirty years old, had married Hannah Brooke, and they were about to have their first child. In the early letters there are a good many references to lands belonging, or which had belonged to him in Georgia, and in a later letter there is a reference by Isaac Briggs to the effect that he had resided in Georgia just before this time. There is considerable reference to these Georgia lands up to about 1803, and then chief interest in them is postponed until the letters of Isaac Briggs, Jr., written in the period 1844-47, which are concerned entirely with Georgia affairs.

The correspondence of the Briggs connection is extensive through the whole collection of letters, They are intimate and personal, filled with domestic news, religious considerations, occasional verses by Isaac Briggs and members of his family, and references to all manner of persons and places, but the high points in regard to Isaac Briggs himself to be gathered from his own letters, of which he kept copies, may be said to be his engagement as surveyor general of the Mississippi territory in 1803, which took him on a journey through the Creek Nation in Georgia, and to the Louisiana territory, where he made his headquarters at a place called Washington, on the Mississippi, near Natchez. He remained in that office for a considerable time, directed surveys in the vicinity of the Mississippi as high as the mouth of the Arkansaw River, and then suddenly appears to have left his position, leaving personal possessions and his two horses behind him and eventually returning to his home in Maryland. He appears to have been very homesick, and there were constant reproaches between husband and wife for their failure to write frequently but there is no other cause for his sudden departure which one can deduce from the correspondence.

His letters during this whole period are extremely interesting, touching as they do on the wilderness, the Creek Nation and the social and political life in Louisiana and New Orleans.

After his return, in 1804, he appears to have been requested to represent manufacturing interests before Congress at Washington. His letters written from Washington during this period are also of interest in their references to public persons. He was on familiar terms with Thomas Jefferson, who was then President, who was attracted to him by his scientific attainments.

At the time of this Washington stay, Briggs also presented a petition to Congress for what appears to have been further compensation for his services in the Mississippi territory, but the correspondence does not show whether it was ever acted upon favorably or not.

During this period, his brother Sam Briggs had invented a steam engine in which Isaac Briggs became interested.

In 1809 Isaac Briggs and two relatives formed a company for manufacturing cotton at a place they christened Triadelphia in Maryland, but it does not appear that it was a successful enterprise.

Samuel Briggs appears to have been rather a drifter and a drinker, and as one follows him along through the correspondence he appears to have been occupied with a steam saw mill in various places, but does not seem to have succeeded in his enterprise.

Following Isaac Briggs along, it appears that he moved to Wilmington, Delaware, where he lived for about two years, but it does not appear what occupation he was engaged in. In 1817 he was invited to go to New York in regard to being engaged on the prospective construction of the Erie Canal. His letters in regard to his connection with this work extend from 1817 until January 1819. The suggestion in the earlier notes that his employment terminated almost with his engagement is incorrect, and his letters show the continuation of his work from Utica surveying eastward until the winter stopped all field work.

The whole of Briggs' letters in this connection makes an interesting narrative, but it is incomplete in failing to disclose why his employment again ceased. In a later letter he states that he resigned his position. Soon after this he became interested in internal improvements in Virginia and went to Richmond in March, 1819. Then he appears to have been engaged on a survey for a canal, which would be undertaken from a James River Canal and carried on across the Alleghanies to connect with the navigation of the Ohio River. In January, 1820, In January, 1820, it appears that Briggs had finished up his report as to the Ohio end of the route, but he does not say what happened to it in the hands of the Legislature. It looks as if their report was unfavorable.

In May, 1820, Briggs is at Richmond and is shortly engaged on the survey of the routing of a canal for the James River companies. In connection with his work as surveyor, he entered into partnerships for the construction of sections of the canal, and was away from home at Sandy Springs for many months on this work, except for rare visits to his wife and family. During all the period through which he was absent from home so much he is full of reproaches to his wife and his children for their failure to write to him more often. His work on the James River Canal appears to have affected his health, of which he writes very frequently.

On July 9, 1822, he was urged by Governor Randolph of Virginia to go to Monticello, where Jefferson was still living, for the benefit of his health. The visit never took place.

In October, 1822, his senior associate, Moore, died and Briggs expected to be appointed to his position. In December, 1822, appears a recommendation of the members of the Potomac Commission to the Governor of Virginia in support of him, but on April 15, 1823, Briggs writes that a French engineer has been appointed to the position and he is so disgusted with Richmond that he desires to leave it as soon as possible. In the meantime the Briggs and Gamble contract was dragging along, making it impossible for him to obtain the payment of what he is assured will be a profit on the work. His health became bad but he continued to work on his reports to the Potomac Commission and Board of Public Works and was assisting members of the Virginia Legislature on a Bill for further Canal work.

It does not appear whether his expectations of a profit on his work in Virginia was realized, and after the letter of April 15th there are no further letters from Isaac Briggs in the collection. Letters to him addressed to Fredericktown and Baltimore suggest that he was here for a short time, engaged on an intended Maryland canal which the Legislature of Maryland had resolved to build from Baltimore to Cumberland, to connect with another canal to Georgetown.

In March, 1824, there is a letter to him from his friend Gamble in Richmond, informing him that there is an opportunity for engineering work in Georgia, which suggests that he was out of occupation at that time.

In December, 1824, Isaac Briggs appears to have been at home at Sandy Springs, in very much impaired health, and early in January, 1825, he died, leaving a very small estate, his widow, Hannah Brooke, his son, Isaac Briggs, Jr., and his daughters, one of whom appears to have been married to James P. Stabler, one to a Mr. Bond and one to Bentley. This daughter and her husband migrated to New Lisbon, Ohio, and settled there and letters from her make an interesting part of the collection of correspondence, following on from the death of her father, Isaac Briggs.

By R.D. Ware April 15, 1930

This series of the correspondence in the Stabler collection may be said to begin immediately after the death of Isaac Briggs in 1825. Let it be said now, which seems to have been omitted, that the Briggs-Stabler families, their relatives and friends were all Quakers, addressing each other as “dear brother,” “dear sister,” or “dear friend,” making the identification of relationship difficult and the degree of relationship confusing and uncertain.

In the first notes in regard to the Stabler collection it is suggested that Stabler appears to have been a nephew of Mrs. Isaac Briggs, but examination of the correspondence leaves one less certain of that. At all events, James P. Stabler became a son-in-law of Mrs. Isaac Briggs, through marrying her daughter, Sarah Briggs in February, 1830. It appears that Stabler had become a widower at that time and had a son, Pleasants Stabler by his first marriage.

In the earlier memoranda in regard to the collection, it is suggested that James P. Stabler had carried on a small business in watch repairing for a short time, but that is not the fact. Watch repairing was the occupation of the youngest son of Isaac Briggs, as he grew old enough to undertake it.

There is a suggestion in the correspondence that Stabler had been employed as assistant engineer by Isaac Briggs on one of his surveys. Whether Stabler lived at Sandy Springs at that time or not, is not clear, but in 1827 he was living there and tells of being shot in his right eye while bird shooting, with considerable injury to it. It appears to have affected his health substantially, and in June, 1827, he took an ocean trip to England at the invitation of friends for the benefit of his health. By October 15 he had returned to Sandy Springs, where he was postmaster. It seems to have been difficult for him to find occupation and he undertook a long trip through the South selling maps which has been referred to, and which led to his interesting series of letters in regard to it.

On his return, one finds Stabler engaged in September, 1829, at work as assistant engineer on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad at Ellicott Mills. A cousin was President of the road and it seems to have been the practice for all the family connection to benefit the members of the family whenever they had opportunity. Subsequently he was appointed Chief of Construction of the B. and O., which position he appears to have filled until December 31, 1836. The reason for his getting through does not appear in connection with his leaving, but there is later suggestion that work which he had not undertaken to perform,- that of contracting for labor and materials, and the disbursement of money on behalf of the road, was thrust upon him to considerable extent, with no increase of salary.

Then it appears that he went to work for the Delaware and Maryland Railroad, with headquarters at Elkton, Md., for a short time, and then was engaged by the Wilmington and Susquehanna Railroad, with headquarters at Wilmington, Del., as Chief of Construction. There appears to have been discontent for some reason, with his employment and the terms of it here, as with the conditions on the Baltimore and Ohio, but after a seeming adjustment of all difficulties, Stabler was discharged and he returned to the Sharon property at Sandy Springs with his wife and either one or two children, which had been born to him. During a good deal of this time Stabler's health had become increasingly bad. His finances were low and he did what he could to earn a living for himself and family.

Finally he became interested in silk culture, with the raising of mulberry trees and the feeding of silk worms on them.

He also had become greatly interested in a new medical cult, spoken of as “Thompsonism,” a “botanic system,” which seems to have had a strong hold on the Briggs-Stabler family connection and generally throughout their part of the country.

He became weaker as time went on and eventually died at Sandy Springs on February 13, 1840, leaving his wife and family almost destitute and in debt for the expense of the attempt to establish himself in silk culture.

During the period between the death of Isaac Briggs and the death of James P. Stabler, Anna Briggs, who had married a Bentley, had moved to New Lisbon, Ohio and wrote many letters to her mother and family describing her life among the early settlers in Ohio. These letters taken together would make an interesting narrative of the development of that part of the country.

Isaac Briggs, Jr., was also growing up during this period, and first left Sandy Springs to work on Canal and Railroad jobs in Pennsylvania. Later he returned to Sandy Springs but seemed unable to find occupation and was constantly wandering from one place to another. Finally he became a doctor of medicine in the practice of Thompsonism.

By 1843 his lack of success in his undertaking, and interest aroused in the Georgia lands which his father had acquired back in 1793 or earlier, had led him to go to Georgia to undertake to recover the land or make settlement in regard to it. He went there as a practicing doctor of Thompsonism and by 1844 had established himself in Athens, Ga. The narrative of Isaac Briggs, the younger, would make a separate treatise by itself. So for the time he may be left as a resident of Athens.

During this same period, Pleasants Stabler, the son of James P. Stabler by his first marriage, was coming to manhood.

He also appears to have found great difficulty in establishing himself in an occupation in Richmond or in Baltimore or in New Orleans, where he went in the winter of 1843, primarily for his health, but also to find occupation. In this he was unsuccessful and is next heard of in Tennessee, apparently in connection with iron mining. His undertakings rouse interest along with those of Isaac Briggs the younger more than do the allusions to the innumerable cousins who make up the younger generation, to the overwhelming confusion of mind of a reader of the correspondence as a whole.

The material which James P. Stabler seems to have taken away with him when he left the employ of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad is so indefinite as to locality, and also incomplete and fragmentary both in itself and as to the B. and O.R.R. as a whole, that it is difficult to see how it can be of any material value in a consideration of the B. and O.R.R. and its development. The letters themselves put so many on the stage that it is impossible to follow them all on their paths. It seems as if the value of the personal correspondence is limited to a consideration of the life of Isaac Briggs, the career of James P. Stabler and as much of the lives of Isaac Briggs the younger, Anna Briggs Bentley and her family in Ohio, and Pleasants Stabler as the correspondence covers.

The references to the Wilmington and Susquehanna Railroad are as unsatisfactory and fragmentary for material, useful purposes as is the material in the James P. Stabler files concerning the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.

The two figures who stand out the most in the rest of the series of letters are Isaac Briggs Jr., whom we left in Athens, Ga., and his sister, Anna Bentley, who had moved to Ohio, and their letters show something of their lives and the conditions of their environment. The other letters are so personal and would require so definite a knowledge of intimate family affairs that the impression one gets from them is constant rehearsal of financial distress, constant illness, many visits, deaths, marriages and births, and intimate household details.

There is a series of letters from Isaac Briggs Jr., written from Georgia, from which his failure to derive any benefit from the Georgia land claims appears which is interesting as showing something of the social and political conditions in Georgia during the period in which they were written, 1843-47. One gathers from the whole correspondence that nothing ever came from the claims in regard to the Georgia land, which his father, Isaac Briggs, had taken up about 1793. They appear to have been sold for taxes, certain sales apparently fraudulently made, and there are portions of the land adversely occupied by squatters. Isaac Briggs appears to have wandered about as a doctor of Thompsonism for a number of years, through the South, and then, after a stay with the family at Sharon, finally landed in Philadelphia in the employ of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The last reference to him is in a letter written in 1889, referring to Uncle Isaac as still living at Sharon. No record of his death appears in the correspondence. His life appears to have been of poverty, hardship and frequent disability, and yet his letters are almost invariably written in cheerfulness and without complaint.

Anna Bentley's letters become less interesting in regard to her Ohio life as it became less difficult, with changing social conditions. The last reference to her shows that she was still living in 1884.

Pleasants Stabler is last heard of in 1847 in Baltimore, with the B. & O. R.R., and in poor health.

During the decade beginning 1840 there are a few references to the Mexican War, and a few also to slavery. In the next decade there are more references to slavery and allusions to “poor John Brown.” In 1861 the query appears in a letter “is it possible that there will be bloodshed?” And there are references to “the mob” in Baltimore when the 6th Massachusetts Regiment passed through on its way to Washington. Except for one letter written in 1863, there is no correspondence during the active period of the war, 1862-63-64. In 1865 there are references to the death of Lincoln, the capture of Jeff Davis and an interesting letter giving an account of a trip by Wilmington friends to Richmond and the fortification at Petersburg. That is about the end of any information concerning other than affairs at Sandy Springs, and at the homes of the other correspondents in their letters to the surviving members of the Briggs-Stabler family living there.

The correspondence after 1889 shows little of particular interest, except the growth and spread of the family connections and the improved health and prosperity of the younger generation. With the going out of the old manner of sending letters and the coming in of postage stamps and envelopes, it became more difficult to know the origin of many of the letters, and as many of them are signed by initials, to know who the writers were, and the correspondence after 1889 becomes more indefinite and confusing.

In 1910 the old homestead, Sharon, at Sandy Springs, was sold at auction by order of James P. Stabler and Harold B. Stabler, from which one may conjecture that their mother, Sarah P. Stabler, had died at about that time, but there are no references to her death in the correspondence. There are several wide breaks in its continuity during this period.

The last date of any letter in the collection is in 1920. As a whole, the picture to be derived from the correspondence is one of constant struggle, illness and want of money for the immediate descendants of Isaac Briggs the elder and his son-in-law, James P. Stabler. Both were men of education and attainment but good fortune did not seem to attend their best endeavors, though in their family connections were persons of wealth with whom they appear to have been on a basis of entire social equality. The whole family connection was fervent in its faith in the Quaker doctrine. The younger generation appears to have wandered away somewhat, perhaps from the time when Quaker youths were reported as drilling in 1861 in Philadelphia.

The correspondence as a whole may be said to be the record of the growth of an American family in its relation to the social life of the country, but it does not appear that there are any conclusions to be drawn from this personal correspondence which would be of any material value in business considerations, either historically or for present benefit.

By R. D. Ware April 24, 1930.