Foot-prints of a letter carrier; or, a history of the world's correspondece

by James Rees

Jacob Collamer.—Born at Troy, New York, about 1792, and removed in childhood to Burlington, Vermont, with his father; graduated at the State University at that place in 1810; served during the year 1812 a frontier campaign as a lieutenant in the service of the United States; admitted to the bar in 1813; practised law for twenty years, serving frequently in the State legislature. In 1833 he was elected an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the State, from which position he voluntarily retired in 1842. In the course of that period he was also a member of a convention held to revise the Constitution of the State. In 1843, elected to Congress to fill a vacancy, and re-elected for a full term in 1844, and again in 1846. Appointed postmaster-general March 7, 1849,—thus forming one of the Cabinet of President Taylor. He resigned in 1850, with the rest of the Cabinet, on the death of the President, and was soon afterwards reappointed on the Supreme bench of his State, which office he held until 1854, when he was elected a Senator in Congress from Vermont for six years from 1855; and in 1861 he was re-elected for the term ending in 1867, serving as chairman of the Committee on Post-Offices and Post-Roads, also that on the Library, and as a member of several other important committees. He received the degree of LL.D. from the University of Vermont and from Dartmouth College, New Hampshire.

He died on the 9th of November, 1865, at Woodstock, Vermont, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. Mr. Collamer was one of the most distinguished of our statesmen, and one of the oldest members of the Senate.

Nathan Kelsey Hall.—Born at Skaneateles, New York, March 28, 1810; removed to Aurora, in the same State, in 1826, and commenced the study of the law with Millard Fillmore; removed with the latter to Buffalo in 1830; admitted to the bar in 1832; appointed First Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in 1841; in 1845 elected a member of the State legislature, and in 1846 a member of Congress. He was appointed postmaster-general July 20, 1850, and in 1852 United States Judge for the Northern District of New York.

It was during his administration that the change was made in the rates of postage, by making letter-postage three cents to every part of the United States, except California and the Pacific Territories,—the weight of letter one-half ounce, and prepaid.

Samuel Dickenson Hubbard.—Born at Middletown, Connecticut, August 10, 1799; graduated at Yale College in 1819. He was admitted to the bar in 1822, but subsequently engaged in manufacturing enterprises. He was mayor of the city of Middletown, and held other offices of local trust. In 1845 he was elected a member of Congress, and re-elected in 1847. He was appointed postmaster-general September 14, 1852. Died at Middletown, October 8, 1855.

James Campbell.—Born September 1, 1813, in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; admitted to the bar in 1834, at the age of twenty-one years; in 1841, at the age of twenty-eight, he was appointed Judge of the Common Pleas Court for the city and county of Philadelphia, which position he occupied for the term of nine years; in 1851, when the Constitution of the State was changed, making the judiciary elective, he was nominated by a State convention of his party as a candidate for the Supreme Court of the State, but was defeated after a warmly-contested and somewhat peculiar contest, securing, however, 176,000 votes; in January, 1852, he was appointed Attorney-General of Pennsylvania, which he resigned to assume the duties of postmaster-general: he was appointed to that office on the 8th of March, 1853.

There was no particular feature in the postal department to render this gentleman’s name in its connection popular during his term of office. It is somewhat curious, however, that the administrations of Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan—both peculiarly political—should have furnished to the Southern Confederacy more prominent men who were engaged with them in office than did all the other administrations combined. Is this accident, design, or the effect of their political education under their reign?

Aaron Vail Brown.—Appointed postmaster-general under James Buchanan’s administration in 1857; was born August 15, 1795, in Brunswick county, Virginia; graduated at the University of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill, in 1814; studied law and soon commenced practice in Nashville, Tennessee; he was partner in the law business of the late President Polk; served in almost all the sessions of the legislature of Tennessee between 1821 and 1832; he was a member of the House of Representatives from 1839 to 1845, and was in that year elected Governor of Tennessee.

In his first report as postmaster-general, made December 1, 1857, he very modestly stated that, “entering on the administration of the Post-Office Department,” he “ventured on no new theories, nor attempted any innovations on the well-tried system established and practised upon” by his predecessors.

It was during his administration that the route from New York to New Orleans was considerably improved and transportation facilitated;[41] also the mail-service on the Mississippi River below the Ohio was materially changed and improved.