Briggs-Greene Collection

Collection — Multiple Containers

Identifier: MSS 2021.0014

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

Collection comprises a selection of documents related to the life and work of Thomas Alcott Briggs as a captain of the Steamboat Silas O. Pierce and as a representative from Greene County in the New York State Assembly for a term following the Civil War. Materials included are papers related to the sale and registration of the Silas O. Pierce, as well as correspondence of constituents to Mr. Briggs during his time in the Assembly. Other materials relate to the Greene Family, long time owners of the Keeper's Cottage at Four Mile Point in Coxsackie. Materials included are papers of the Greene and Soich families related to their ownership of the property, as well as a selection of family photographs housed separately. Of note are several bound volumes of Keeper's Logs/Reports from the 1870s through the 1920s covering the activities of the keepers stationed at Four Mile Point Lighthouse when it was a manned navigation beacon.

Dates

1830 - 2009

Biographical / Historical

The Briggs Family of Athens is associated with a long maritime tradition on the Hudson River. Thomas Briggs, son of Captain Benjamin Briggs of Athens and grandson of Captain Thomas Alcott also of Athens, was a mariner by trade who followed his vessel the Silas O. Pierce into federal service during the American Civil War. Family legend establishes that Thomas Briggs, as captain of the Silas O. Pierce, transported Jefferson Davis from a larger ship to a cell at Fort Monroe at the close of the war follwoing Davis' capture. Thomas Briggs served one term in the New York State Assembly in 1867, and was engaged for many years in the Coal and Ice Business at New York and Athens up to the beginning of the 20th Century.

Thomas Briggs' wife was Deborah Miller, and one document in the collection relates to the genealogy of her family. Brigg's papers now in this collection first descended to the care of Brigg's daughter Elizabeth Soich, and subsequently to her daughter Deborah who married into the Greene Family residing in the old Keeper's Cottage at Four Mile Point in Coxsackie.

Greene family papers in this collection relate primarily to the purchase, ownership, and modernization of the Four Mile Point Lighthouse Keeper's Cottage at Coxsackie and offers details concerning the lives of Raymond Soich, Deborah Greene, Donald Greene, and their children. Thom Greene, great-grandson of Thomas A. Briggs, was responsible for the donation of his family papers to the Greene County Historical Society shortly before his death in 2008.

Extent

.3 Cubic Feet (One legal size document case and separated protective photo sleeves in photo binder box.) : Handwritten documents, photographs, and bound publications.

Additional Description

Arrangement

This relatively small collection is broken into five series which are organized in roughly chronological order as papers and materials of Thomas Briggs; papers and materials of the Greene family; miscellaneous papers and research files; Lighthouse Keeper's logs; and family photographs (housed separately).