Isaac Briggs

Isaac Briggs (1763– January 5, 1825) was an American engineer, surveyor and manufacturer. He lived much of his adult life with his family in Brookeville, Maryland.

Early life Isaac Briggs was born in Haverford, Pennsylvania in 1763 to Samuel and Mary Briggs, two Quakers. He studied at the College of Pennsylvania (the University of Pennsylvania today), where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1783 and a Master of Arts in engineering in 1786.

Additionally, Briggs was a devout Quaker and a member of the American Philosophical Society. He was close friends with both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.

Career On February 1, 1788, the Georgia legislature awarded Augusta inventor William Longstreet and his associate Isaac Briggs a patent for a steam engine. It is the only patent issued by the state because this was before the adoption of the Federal Constitution. In 1807 their engine was used to power a boat on a 5-mile journey against the current on the Savannah River. Only days before, Robert Fulton had sailed his new steamboat, the Clermont, from New York City up the Hudson River to Albany.)

He was an unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1789.

Briggs was a renowned surveyor and engineer. During 1791-1792, he assisted Andrew Ellicott in the survey of the boundaries of the original District of Columbia (see Boundary Markers of the Original District of Columbia). In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson appointed him to be the Surveyor General of the Mississippi Territory. In 1814, he relocated to Wilmington, Delaware to work as a superintendent of Thomas Little & Company, a textile mill.

Death Briggs became ill while working on the James River and Kanawha Canal in Virginia. He died at home at Sharon near Brookeville on January 5, 1825.