Boyce, Thomas J. (Thomas Jefferson), -1853

Thomas Jefferson Boyce was a sail maker in the United States Navy from 1829 until about 1849. He sailed the Caribbean Sea and in the Gulf of Mexico while serving on the United States Ship Peacock from September 14, 1829 to May 1831, and on the United States Ship St. Louis from August 14, 1833 to April 8, 1836. He then journeyed on the Pacific Ocean while serving on the United States Ship North Carolina from November 17, 1836 until 1839. While on the Peacock he survived a bout of yellow fever, however, he was hospitalized later in Norfolk, Virginia, after a relapse. He recuperated in Newark, New Jersey and afterwards served at the Navy Yards in New York City where he was erroneously discharged for taking payments for teaching boys how to make sails. President Millard Fillmore reinstated Boyce before his death on March 25, 1853.