Zachariah Brigden papers

The Zachariah Brigden Papers document the life of an eighteenth-century Boston silversmith and the lives of other members of the Brigden and Edwards families. They will be of interest both to those studying early American silversmiths and to those attempting to reconstruct silver ownership in the Boston area. The papers span the dates 1691-1798, but the bulk of the material covers the period 1748-87.

The Brigden Papers are divided into two sections: Zachariah Brigden (folders 1-41) and Brigden and Edwards Families (folders 42-56). The first section is alphabetically arranged by subject, while in the second the order is alphabetical by individual. Within each file the papers are chronologically arranged.

Materials on the career of Zachariah Brigden (1734-87), contained in eleven folders, include three daybooks. The first (folder 27) holds 1691-93 accounts in an unknown late seventeenth-century hand and a series of designs for silver objects such as a "French Fork," "the Indian Minister's Cup," "Tea Tongs," a "toth Picker," and a "Chape for a Sword." The third daybook (folder 29) contains extensive records of the silver work Brigden did for a number of individuals from Boston, eastern Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine, including John Alen (tailor), Daniel Boyer, William Cario, the Reverend Samuel Cooper (1725-83), Moses Gill, Thomas Jackson (distiller), Christopher Lair, John Leverett, Dr. James Lloyd (1728-1810), the Reverend Jonathan Mayhew (1720-66), Zacheus Morton (baker), James Otis, Adino Padock, Josiah Quincy (1744-75), the Reverend Chandler Robbins (1738-99), Isaac Royall, Colonel Nathaniel Sparhawk, and Ebenezer Storer (1750-1807). Invoices for Daniel Boyer, Joseph Callender, Benjamin Phillips, and for general silversmith work contain additional information. The silversmith work material (folders 37-38) includes invoices for Major Edward Carns, Nathaniel Gorham (1738-96), Benjamin Hall, Samuel Holbrook (1729-84), the schoolmaster, and Daniel Jones. Additional material can be found in folders 19, 20, and 41. Folder 41 holds "An Acco[un]t of the Value of Silver pr ounce from the Year 1700-1750." It shows that in 1700 silver cost seven shillings an ounce, while fifty years later the price had increased to fifty-six shillings.

The rest of the Zachariah Brigden papers document the economic circumstances of a Boston artisan and his family in the era of the American Revolution. The collection holds, for example, twenty-five folders of bills and receipts, some organized by subject (clothing, liquor, wood) and others by individual. The Nathaniel Sparhawk bills (folder 21) show that Brigden sometimes acted as agent for the Kittery, Maine, councilor, while several bills for purchases of shoes for Samuel Hirst Sparhawk and Andrew Sparhawk (folder 22) suggest that he may have been a shoemaker as well as a silversmith. A December 1, 1766 bill from the editors of The Boston Gazette, Edes & Gill (folder 5), requests payment from Brigden for advertising to sell a horse and "sundries." The miscellaneous bills and receipts (folder 12) include bills for rental of a barn, the labor of a black man belonging to Peter Combes, and the purchase of tools. The estate papers include an inventory taken on April 2, 1787, and tax bills covering the years 1777-86 from the "town" of Boston, the county, and the commonwealth.

The Brigden and Edwards Families section contains a small number of papers concerning several members of those families. The collection holds the estate papers of John Edwards, the grandfather of Zachariah Brigden's first wife Sarah; miscellaneous papers of her uncle Samuel Edwards; bills and receipts of her mother Sarah Burr Edwards; and a bill of lading, court papers, estate papers, and financial papers of Thomas Edwards, her father. Thomas Edwards was himself a silversmith, and invoices in folder 55 provide some information on his work. Also included are bills for the final sickness of Elizabeth Brigden and funeral expenses for Elizabeth and John Brigden, children of Zachariah's second marriage.