American Historical Ephemera and Photography

Addressed "To The Honob. The Board Warr [sic]." 1p, 6 1/2 x 2 3/4 in.

Message reads in full, "Gentlemen, I have to cause to be delivered to Mr. Ebenezer Batchelder for Brigg Active, Three Hundred of Iron."

On 5 May 1779, Amasa Davis was commissioned Agent for the Board of War, and directed to superintend the outfitting of the armed brigantine Active, a British privateer captured by the Massachusetts brigantine Hazard two months earlier. Taken as a prize ship, the Active arrived in Boston in April 1779, and was outfitted for American service in the Continental Navy under the direction of Amasa Davis.

General Amasa Davis was born in 1744 in Woodstock, CT, but his family later removed to Roxbury, Massachusetts. His older brother, Caleb Davis, was a member of the Sons of Liberty, while Amasa Davis was a participant in the December 1773 Boston Tea Party. During the Revolutionary War, Amasa Davis served as a quartermaster of one of the Boston regiments in the Continental Army, rising to the rank of Brigadier General. A merchant, he was also the quartermaster general for Massachusetts from 1787 to 1825. Davis died in 1825 and is buried at the Central Burying Ground in Boston.