The first Postmaster-General was Samuel Osgood, of Massachusetts. The present Postmaster is Marshall Jewell, of Hartford, Connecticut.
The subordinate officers of the Department are three Assistant Postmaster-Generals, and the Chief of the Inspection Office. The Appointment Office is in charge of the First Assistant Postmaster-General. To this office are assigned all questions which relate to the establishment and discontinuance of post-offices, changes of sites and names, appointment and removal of postmasters, and route and local agents, as, also, the giving of instructions to postmasters. Postmasters are furnished with marking and rating-stamps and letter-balances by this Bureau, which is charged also with providing blanks and stationery for the use of the Department, and with the superintendence of the several agencies established for supplying postmasters with blanks. “To this Bureau is likewise assigned the supervision of the ocean-mail steamship-lines, and of the foreign and international postal arrangements.”
The Contract-Office is in charge of the Second Assistant Postmaster-General. To this office is assigned the business of arranging the mail service of the United States, and placing the same under contract, embracing all correspondence and proceedings affecting the frequency of trips, mode of conveyance, and time of departures and arrivals on all the routes; the course of the mail between the different sections of the country; the points of mail distribution; and the regulations for the government of the domestic mail service of the United States. It prepares the advertisements for mail proposals, receives the bids, and takes charge of the annual and occasional mail lettings, and the adjustment and execution of the contracts. All applications for the establishment or alteration of mail arrangements, and the appointment of mail messengers, should be sent to this office. All claims should be submitted to it for transportation service not under contract, as the recognition of said service is first to be obtained through the Contract-Office as a necessary authority for the proper credits at the Auditor’s-Office.
From this office all postmasters at the ends of routes receive the statement of mail arrangements prescribed for the respective routes. It reports weekly to the Auditor all contracts executed and all orders affecting accounts for mail transportation; prepares the statistical exhibits of mail service, and the reports of the mail lettings, giving a statement of each bid; also of the contracts made, the new service originated, the curtailments ordered, and the additional allowances granted within the year.
The Finance-Office is in charge of the Third Assistant Postmaster-General. To this office is assigned the supervision and management of the financial business of the Department not devolved by law upon the Auditor, embracing accounts with the draft offices and other depositories of the Department; the issuing of warrants and drafts in payment of balances, reported by the Auditor to be due mail contractors and other persons; the supervision of the accounts of offices under orders to deposit their quarterly balances at designated points; and the superintendence of the rendition by postmasters of their quarterly returns of postages. It has charge of the Dead-Letter Office, of the issuing of postage stamps and stamped envelopes for the prepayment of postage, and with the accounts connected therewith.
To the Third Assistant Postmaster-General all postmasters should direct their quarterly returns; those at draft-offices, their letters reporting quarterly the net proceeds of their offices; and those at depositing-offices, their certificates of deposit. To him should also be directed the weekly and monthly returns of the depositories of the Department, as well as applications and receipts for postage stamps and stamped envelopes, and for dead letters.
The Inspection-Office is in charge of a Chief Clerk. To this office is assigned the duty of receiving and examining the registers of the arrivals and departures of the mails, certificates of the service of route-agents, and reports of mail failures; noting the delinquencies of contractors, and preparing cases thereon for the action of the Postmaster-General; furnishing blanks for mail registers and reports of mail failures, providing and sending out mail bags and mail locks and keys, and doing all other things which may be necessary to secure a faithful and exact performance of all mail contracts.
All cases of mail depredation, of violations of law by private expresses, or by the forging and illegal use of postage stamps, are under supervision of this office, and should be reported to it. All communications respecting lost money-letters, mail depredations, or other violations of law, or mail locks and keys, should be directed to “Chief Clerk, Post-Office Department.”
All registers of the arrivals and departures of the mails, certificates of the service of route-agents, reports of mail failures, applications for mail registers, and all complaints against contractors for irregular or imperfect service, should be directed, “Inspection Office, Post-Office Department.”
Benjamin Franklin was appointed General Deputy Postmaster of the Colonies, in the year 1753, with a salary between him and his confederates, of £600, if they could get it. This experiment brought him in debt £900[£900], and his success in expediting the mails, which he dwells upon with so much satisfaction in his writings, will create a smile in these days of electricity, steam, and “young-American” speed. In the year 1754, he gave notice that the mail to New England, which used to start but once a fortnight, in winter, should start once a week, all the year, “whereby answers might be obtained to letters between Philadelphia and Boston in three weeks, which used to require six weeks!”