FREDERICKSBURG AN IMPORTANT POSTAL POINT.
Fredericksburg, as early as 1820, was a very important point for mail distribution, and the mail matter of not less than five States was assorted here and sent on to its destination. About the breaking out of the War of 1812 mail matter to Fredericksburg rapidly increased, and continued to increase, for several years, which necessitated a change in the method of transporting the mails from Washington, an increase of pay, and finally scandalous reports were put in circulation which resulted in a congressional investigation.
A paper on this investigation, prepared by Henry Castle, Esq., Auditor, from the records in the Postoffice department, and kindly furnished us, will prove interesting.
“The year 1820 had arrived; James Monroe was President and Return J. Meiggs, Jr., of Ohio, was Postmaster General. There were then over three thousand post offices, and the revenues had increased to $1,000,000 per annum, a sum considerable in excess of the expenditures, a feature which seldom characterized the service after that date. It appears from the records that vague rumors of certain irregularities had been afloat throughout the country and in the ‘public prints’ for some time, and that they finally assumed such a tangible shape that a resolution was introduced into the United States Congress providing for an investigation of the charges.
“A committee of the House of Representatives, of which Hon. Elisha Phelps was chairman, proceeded in accordance with instructions of the House, in due form and great deliberation, to investigate the general conduct of the office under Postmaster General Meiggs, and especially the features which had been subjected to more immediate criticism. Mr. Meiggs’s service, as Postmaster General, extended from March 17th 1814, to June 26th 1823, a period of more than nine years. The gravest of the charges made against his administration were substantially as follows:
“First. That he had introduced an irregular financial system which had led to serious losses of the public funds.
“Second. That he had illegally and improperly increased the compensation of certain contractors for carrying the mail.
“With slow formality and tedious reiteration of assurances of distinguished consideration, the solemn committee of the Honorable House of Representatives, and the Honorable Postmaster General, finally reached a point where questions were asked and answered and a tolerably clear understanding of what had really occurred may be gained. The statement of the Postmaster General, divested of all its superfluities and reduced to its simplest form, showed no dereliction in either case, but read at this late day gives an almost ludicrous insight into the diminutive transactions which then sufficed for this great, free and intelligent Republic.
“Postmaster General Meiggs’s answer to the second charge was perhaps even more interestingly significant as a revelation of the day of small things. He admitted that he had increased the compensation of contractors for carrying the mails, but justified his action on the ground of an imperious necessity.
“The case as he explained it was this: His predecessor in office had about the year 1813, let a contract to certain parties for transporting mail from the Seat of Government at Washington to Fredericksburg, Virginia, a distance of seventy miles. This great mail route, which would now be termed a trunk line, carried substantially the mail for the five States of Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. The contract provided that these mails should be carried by stage coach in summer and, as the roads were impassable in winter, they were to be carried on horseback.