Very soon after the commencement of the first session of Congress a letter was received from Ebenezer Hazard (July 17, 1789), then postmaster-general under the old Confederation, suggesting the importance of some new regulations for that department. A bill for the temporary establishing of a post-office was passed soon afterwards. The subject was brought up from time to time, until the present system was organized in 1792. The postmaster-general was not made a Cabinet-officer until the first year (1829) of President Jackson’s administration.
Timothy Pickering.—Born at Salem, Massachusetts, July 17, 1746; graduated in 1763; was colonel of a regiment of militia at the age of nineteen, and marched for the seat of war at the first news of the battle of Lexington; in 1775, was appointed judge of two local courts; in the fall of 1776, marched to New Jersey with his regiment; in 1777, appointed adjutant-general, and subsequently a member of the board of war with Gates and Mifflin; in 1780 he succeeded Greene as quartermaster-general; in 1790 he was employed in negotiations with the Indians; August 12, 1791, he was appointed postmaster-general; in 1794, Secretary of War, and in 1795, Secretary of State; from 1803 to 1811 he was senator, and from 1814 to 1817 representative in Congress; died at Salem, June 29, 1829.
Joseph Habersham.—Born in 1750; a lieutenant-colonel during the Revolutionary War, and in 1785 a member of Congress; appointed postmaster-general, February 25, 1795; he was afterwards president of the United States Branch Bank in Savannah, Georgia; died at that place, November, 1815.
Gideon Granger.—Born at Suffield, Connecticut, July 19, 1767; graduated at Yale College in 1787, and the following year admitted to the bar; in 1793, elected to the Connecticut Legislature; November 28, 1801, appointed postmaster-general; retired in 1814, and removed to Canandaigua, New York; April, 1819, elected a member of the Senate of that State, but resigned in 1821 on account of ill health. During his service in that body he donated one thousand acres of land to aid the construction of the Erie Canal. Died at Canandaigua, December 31, 1822.
Return Jonathan Meigs.—Born at Middletown, Connecticut, in 1765; graduated at Yale College in 1785, and subsequently admitted to the bar; in 1788, emigrated to Marietta, Ohio, then the Northwestern Territory; in 1790, during the Indian wars, he was sent by Governor St. Clair on a perilous mission through the wilderness to the British commandant at Detroit; in the winter of 1802-03 he was elected by the legislature the first chief justice of the Supreme Court of the new State; in October, 1804, he was appointed colonel commanding the United States forces in the upper district of the Territory of Louisiana, and resigned his judgeship; in the following year he was appointed one of the United States judges for Louisiana; April 2, 1807, he was transferred to the Territory of Michigan; in October following he resigned his judgeship, and was elected Governor of the State of Ohio, but his election was successfully contested on the ground of non-residence. He was chosen at the same session as one of the judges of the Supreme Court of the State, and at the next session as United States Senator for a vacancy of one year, and also for a full term. In 1810 he was again elected Governor of Ohio, and on the 8th of December resigned his seat in the Senate; in 1812 he was re-elected Governor; on the 17th of March, 1814, he was appointed postmaster-general, which he resigned in June, 1823. Died at Marietta, March 29, 1825.
John McLean.—Born in Morris county, New Jersey, March 11, 1785. His father subsequently removed to Ohio, of which State the son continued a resident. He labored on the farm until sixteen years of age, when he applied himself to study, and two years afterwards removed to Cincinnati, and supported himself by copying in the county clerk’s office while he studied law. In 1807 he was admitted to the bar; in 1812 he was elected to Congress, and re-elected in 1814; in 1816 he was unanimously elected by the legislature a judge of the Supreme Court of that State; in 1822 he was appointed by President Monroe commissioner of the General Land-Office, and on the 26th of June, 1823, postmaster-general; in 1829 he was appointed as one of the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States.
William T. Barry.—Born in Fairfax county, Virginia, March 18, 1780; graduated at the College of William and Mary. He was admitted to the bar, and in early life emigrated to Kentucky. In 1828 he was a candidate for Governor of that State, and defeated by a small majority after one of the most memorable contests in its annals; appointed postmaster-general March 9, 1829; in 1835, appointed minister plenipotentiary to Spain, and died at Liverpool, England, on his way to Madrid.
Mr. Barry was the first postmaster-general who had the honor of being one of the Cabinet. Whether such a movement has benefited the postal department or not can only be ascertained by a reference to its records. As these present more the appearance of political names, figures, changes, removals, and a confusion of all the elements which make up a party, it is doubtful if the public mind is prepared to view the postal department in any other light than that of one of the revolving political luminaries of the country. A reference, however, to some statistics furnished in this work, and an occasional reference to its not being a self-sustaining institution, may probably throw some light upon the subject.
We have avoided, through motives of nationality rather than of choice, any direct allusion to frauds in the postal department. “When Judge McLean left the department it was,” said his friends, “in a thriving condition.” Such was not the case. From “The Aurora,” edited by the late William Duane, bearing date January 10, 1835, we take the following statement:—
“It would be a hopeless task to seek the qualities, actions, evidence of fitness, or principles of Mr. McLean. We know he was a member of Congress: can any one discover any thing which he did there? He was appointed postmaster-general to cover the retreat of R. J. Meigs, who should have been removed three years before.