Suffolk County, Massachusetts - The whole text, 1894 (part 10 of 17)

Union Institution For Savings

A charter for the Union Institution for Savings was granted to Moses B. WilHams, Patrick Donahoe, John C. Crowley and their associates Februar}^ 8, 1805. The bank commenced business on May 1, 18G5, at No. 328 Washington street, and in August, 1870, removed to the stone structure erected for its use on the corner of Chauncey and Bedford streets. Later on it removed to corner of Washington street and Havward Place, remaining in this location until a few months ago, when it removed to its present location, corner of Tremont and La Grange streets. This savings institution was largely the outgrowth of the Catholic element in Boston, being strongly advocated by Right Rev. John B. Fitzpatrick, Very Rev. J. J. Williams, the present archbishop of Boston, and Rev. John McElroy. At the time of its inception it was difficult to obtain loans on Catholic church property from the savings banks of the city, whose depositors were to a large extent Irish Roman Catholics. This institution broke down the existing prejudice against such loans, and at the present time they are eagerly taken and considered among the safest investments. The L^nion Savings Bank has been managed with care and ability, and during the great run on savings banks which occurred some years ago it proved to be one of the strongest institutions of its kind in the State. The original vice-presidents of the bank were Patrick Donahoe, Wm. H. Thorndike, Rev. James Fittore, Daniel S. Lamdon, Michael Doherty, Joshua D. Ball, William L Bowditch, Rev. George F. Harkins, John Conlon and R. Geo. A. Hamilton; trustees, R. R. S. Andros, J. G. Blake, T. Campbell, Hugh Carey, James Collins, M. H. Gleason, Ambrose Kohler, Joseph A. Lafrome, Francis McLaughlin, Theo. Metcalf, William Murray, Hugh O'Brien, William S. Pelletier, John H. Fallon, Samuel Tuckerman, Thomas J. Lee, Mos^s B. Williams and Robert H. Waters. John C. Crowley, the first president of the bank, continued in that office until 1880, when he was succeeded by Hon. Hugh O'Brien, who has since served in this capacity. Mr. Hugh O'Brien was mayor of Boston for four years, and is now chairman of the Board of Survey of the city. George C. Emery at the time of his death in 1880 had been connected with the bank as treasurer from its organization. He was succeeded by William S. Pelletier, one of the original organizers of the bank, who still holds the position. Joseph D. Fallon has been vicepresident since since 1877. The present trustees are John G. Blake, Henry Canning, ^lichael M. CunnifP, John Curtin, James G. Davis, C.

The total number of open account^at the date of the foregoing report was 10,003. The amount of deposits for the year was $1,000,393.21, and during the same period $94:1,342.39 was paid out to depositors.

Home Savings Bank

The Home Savings Bank was incorporated March 17, 1869, and opened for business February 1, 1870, with Henry Smith as president and E. O. Rockwood as treasurer. The present president of the bank, Charles H. Allen, has filled that position since 1880, and is also president of the Central National Bank, a trustee of the Boston Sinking Fund, and prominent as a financier and executor of important trusts.

W. E. Hooper, treasurer, was chosen in 188-3. He has been connected with the bank since Augfust, 1870. The trustees of the bank, representing some of the most prominent financiers and capitalists of Boston, are as follows: Charles V. Whitten, Louis Weissbein, Thomas F. Temple, William P. Hunt, Joel Goldthwait, Charles W. Bradstreet, Henry D. Hyde, Alonzo S. Weed, Albert T. Whiting, Charles M. Clapp, Henry Baldwin, Newton Talbot, Weston Lewis, William H. Thomes, Charles J. Hayden, David W. Farquhar, George L. Damon, Freeman M. Josselyn, James H. Freeland, Henry Frost, George K. Guild, James G. Haynes, A. L. Fessenden, Rufus G. F. Candage, Henry C. Morse, Ira G. Hersey, Edward P. Mason, Homer Rogers, Stephen W. Reynolds, Edwin Robinson, George A. Fernald, William G. Benedict, Charles B. Perkins, Frederick A. Turner, Henry C. Jackson, Levi L. Willcutt; investing committee, Charles H. Allen, Newton Talbot, John W. Leighton, Thomas F. Temple, Albert T. Whiting, Henry C. Jackson.

In October, 1891, this bank had open accounts with 19,000 depositors, and the amount standing to their credit was $4,097,248.48, or an average amount of $224. G7 to each depositor, while its guarantee fund and undivided earnings amounted to $305,613.98, with total assets of $4,370,438.68.

The number of open accottnts at date of foregoing report was 1!),:38<!. The amount deposited during the year was $1,419,853.03, and during the same period $1,128,110.31 was withdrawn b}' 14,124 depositors.

North End Savings Bank

This institution was chartered February 17, 1870, and commenced operations with the following officers: President, Robert ilarsh ; vicepresidents, Alonzo M. Giles, Mathew Kearney, Thomas Mair, and Clinton Viles; clerk, George S. Derby; treasurer, George C. Trumbull; trtistees, Henry C. Brooks, William C. Burgess, jVIichael Carney, Harvey Carpenter, E. H. Dunn, Dennis F. Flagg, H. W. Fuller, Henry R. Glover, Adrin B. Hull, Nathaniel Hamilton, Peter Harvey, James Healey, William A. Holmes, Thomas L. Jenks, .Samuel P. Langmaid, E. Rollins Morse, George W. Parmenter, Lewis Rice, C. J. F. Sherman, N. B. Shurtleff, Jesse Tirrell, Charles A. Vialle, Charles E. Wiggins, and William C. Williamson.

The bank was first located at 80 Union street, where it remained tmtil ^larch, 1874, when it was removed to 8'.t Court street, and two years later to its present cjuarters 57 Cottrt street.

There have been but three presidents of the bank : Robert Marsh, Nathaniel ]. Rust, and Thomas L. Jenks, the latter having been connected with the bank ever since its organization. The present officers of the bank are as follows: President, Thomas L. Jenks; vice-presidents, Clinton Viles, Lticius Slade, Increase E. Noyes, and James Wentworth Brown; treasurer, Herbert C. Wells; clerk, William C. Williamson; trustees: Charles G. Burgess, John Henry Coffin, John H. Colby, William A. Holmes, Andrew J. Lovell, I. E. Morrison, L. Foster Morse, Henry Pfaff, Francis Raynes, Henry B. Rice, Isaac B. Rich, Joseph R. Richards, Wallace F. Robinson, William Robinson, Nathaniel J. Rust, William G. Shillaber, Addison Smith, Adoniram J. Taylor, James M. Upton, Frederic L. Walker, J, Otis Wetherbee, Charles E. Wiggin.

Rare good judgment has marked the management of this institution, and its condition, as shown by the following report, made October 31, 1892, reflects great credit upon those entrusted with its control.

The total number of open accounts at the time of the foregoing report was 4,320; amount of deposits for the year $564,425. 83, representing (!,i;)l depositors.

Wildey Savings Bank

The Wildey Savings Bank is a comparatively new institution, having been incorporated March 18, 1892, and was the first savings bank to be inaugurated in Boston for twenty-one years. The officers are: John J. Whipple, president; George F. Taft, treasurer; and J. Lawrence Martin, clerk. The first report of its condition, made October 31, 1892, seven months after date of incorporation, shows the following facts:

Mr. A'Vhi]3plc, the president of the bank, i.s a resident t)f l-Jroekton, Mass., and is of extended banking experience, having been for ten years, previous to the organization of this bank, president of the Brockton Savings Bank, of which he is still a trustee. Of the vice-presidents Henry Denver, of Springfield, is superintendent of the Western Union Telegraph Company there; Alfred S. Pinkerton, of Worcester, is a prominent member of the bar, and is president of the Massachusetts Senate; Edwin L. Pilsbury, of the Charlestown District, is commissioner of public works of Boston ; George F. Taft is secretary and treasurer of the AUston Co-operative Bank, and is treasurer of this bank. Besides the president and vice-presidents the board of trustees includes Jay B. Crawford, Henry A. Thomas, Asa T. Newhall, Hon. John M. Raymond, Charles Q. Tirrell, Francis E. Merriman, Charles A. Mayo, Charles N. Alexander, Alexander B. Bruce, George H. Howard, Harvey H. Pratt, Dr. Herbert A. Chase, J. Lawrence Martin, AVilliam F. Cook, Julius L. Clarke, and William E. Ford.

The annexed table will .show the amount of deposits for each savings bank in Boston, the number of open accounts, amount of deposits, and number of deposits for the year ending October 31, 1802:

The amount of deposits, as shown in the above table, exceeds the deposits for the preceding- year by over $7,500,000, while, if the present amount of deposits were divided among the people of Suffolk county on the basis of the census report of 1890, it would give to each and every person nearly $200, a showing, probably, not exceeded by any equal population in any part of the United States. The average amount due depositors is nearly $300.

Trust Companies

Next to the national banks in the money market of Boston stand the trust companies, which are under the control and supervision of the commissioners of savings banks. This is a branch of banking and investment which has developed during recent years very rapidly in Boston, and which has proven a great benefit to both the communit}' and the stockholders. The capitalization of most of them is large, and the deposits with which they have been entrusted form an important element in Boston's financial operations.

The Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Companv was incorporated February 24, 1818, and has a capital of $500,000. William Minot is president, and Abbott Lawrence actuary. The assets of this company, November 1, 1893, were $22,487,057.35; deposits $l!:),9li'>,G70. 08, undivided earnings $1,137,740.41, and surplus fund $60,599.58.

The Boston Safe Deposit and Trust Company was incorporated April 13, 18(57, and has a capital of $1,000,000. The officers are: Frederick M. Stone, president; Frank C. Mills, treasurer; E. P. Bond, secretary; Frederick W. Lincoln, Solomon Lincoln, James Longley, George C. Lord, Daniel Needham, Otis Norcfoss, John Felt Osgood, William E. Putnam, M. Denman Ross, Nathaniel J. Rust, Thomas J Whidden, Henry S. Shaw, Benjamin F. Stevens, Frederick M. Stone, Gerard C. Tobey, and Frank G. Webster, directors. The assets of this company, November 14, 1892, were $8,791,646.90; deposits $6,035,571.34; surplus $800,000; undivided profits $134,532.82.

The New England Trust Company was chartei'ed in April, 1869, and commenced business in February, 1871, with a capital of $500,000. Its statement, made to the commissioners of savings banks in Massachusetts, October 31, 1892, shows that the capital stock of the company paid up amounted to $1,000,000, its guarantee fund to $1,000,000, its undivided profits to $343, (il 1,55, while it held deposits aggregating

$13,807,834.50, and had total resources in its banking department of $10,215,507. In its trust department the company held general and special funds amounting to $1,725,127.45, and had total assets of $1,701,555.98. A trust banking business is transacted, and deposits may be made at any time and interest is allowed on daily balances of $500 and upwards. The company is authorized to receive and hold money or property in trust, or on deposit from courts of law or equity, administrators, assignees, guardians, trustees, corporations and individuals. It also acts as transfer agent for railroads and other stock corporations, and as agent for the purpose of issuing, registering or countersigning bonds and certificates of stock. William Endicott, jr., president of the company since January, 1880, is of the dry goods house of C. F. Hovey & Company, president of the Suffolk Savings Bank for Seamen and Others, and a director of the Tremont National Bank and of the Massachusetts Mutual Fire Insurance Company. Mr. David R. Whitney, the actuary, is also vice-president of the Provident Institution for vSavings, formerly the president, and now a director of the Suffolk National, and of the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company, and a trustee of Mount Auburn Cemetery. N. H. Henchman, secretary of the company, has held that position from its organization. C. W. Merrill is assistant secretary. The vice-presidents are Charles H. Dalton, Charles F. Choate, and J. Lewis Stackpole. Besides the president and vice-presidents, the board of directors includes Amos W. Stetson, Charles U. Cotting, James J. Storrow, Jacob Edwards, Edmund Dwight, John F. Anderson, Alexander Cochrane, Nathaniel Thayer, Frederick L. Ames, T. Jefferson Coolidge, Franklin Haven, jr., Robert Codman, Henry C. W^eston, George Dexter, and Roger Wolcott.

The Massachusetts Loan and Trust Company was organized in 1870 with a capital of $500,000, since increased to $1,000,000. The company receives money on deposit subject to check and allows interest on daily balances ; makes special rates of interest on money payable at a fixed time; makes advances on staple merchandise, foreign or domestic, on bills of lading or warehoiise receipts, and under its charter is authorized to receive and hold, collect and disperse money, securities or property in trust, or otherwise, from individuals, executors and administrators, gnardians, trustees, or by order of court, or to act as trustee and financial agent for any person, societies, corporations or municipal authority; and the company also acts as trustee under mort- gages for railroads and other corporations, and as agent for the payment of bonds, coupons, dividends, etc., and as transfer agent for the stocks and bonds of incorporated companies, makes collections of rents, coupons and dividends for depositors, and takes custody of real and personal securities. Its statement, dated February 1, 1893, showed in addition to its capital stock of $1,000,000, a surplus fund of $200,000, and undivided earnings of $57,170.53, while it held depo.sits of $3,063,- 45430, and had total resources of $3,443,93(;.98. The president, Stephen M. Crosbjr, is one of the well known financiers of Boston, and gives to the affairs of the company an administration which has been a leading factor in promoting its growth. Mr. Frank W. Reynolds, the treasurer, has also aided largely in the prosperity of the company. In addition to these gentlemen the board of directors includes Samuel Atherton, president of the New England National Bank of Boston ; Cyrus G. Beebe, Samuel Carr, Isaac Fenno, Eugene N. Foss, and Joseph H. Gray, vice-president of the Bank of North America; Henry D. Hyde, Jerome Jones, Moses Kimball, Benjamin F. Spinney, treasurer of the Thomson-Houston Electric Company; Richard H. Stearns, and Edward Whitney. The company is an approved depository of the Commonwealth and a legal depository for savings banks.

The International Trust Company was incorporated in 1879, under State laws, with a capital of $500,000, which was increased in 1893 to $1,000,000, fully paid up. It conducts a general banking and trust company business, allowing interest on deposits subject to check, and special rate when payable at specified dates, its checks being received through the Boston Clearing-house. It also discounts commercial paper, makes loans on approved securit)- or collateral, and collections upon points in the United States, Canada, and Europe, draws sterling bills of exchange on the London and Westminster Bank, limited, of London, England, which may be cashed anywhere ; makes cable transfers, acts as fiscal agent for States, municipalities, railroads and corporations for the payment of bonds, coupons, dividends, etc., and is a legal depository for States, municipalities, banks, corporations, firms and individuals, administrators, executors, trustees, guardians, and courts of law and equity. The company also acts as trustee under mortgages or deeds of trust from railroads and other corporations, registrar and transfer agent of the stock and bonds of incorporated companies, etc., and in connection with the business there is a trust department, which is kept separate and distinct from the general business, for the accept- ance of trust under any will or instrument creating a trust, trust deposits, and the care and management of property in this State. Its statement made to the commissioners of savings banks in Massachusetts, October 31, 1892, showed, in addition to its capital of $1,000,000, a surplus fimd and undivided profits ainounting to |;942,971.17, deposits $5,- 970,599. CO, and total assets of $7,913,570.77 in its banking department. In its trust department it held trust deposits of $1,041,522.95, and had total assets $1,052,151.29. The handsome eight-story banking building lately erected by the company at 45 Milk street, is one of the finest architectural additions to the office buildings of Boston, The president it John M. Graham, and Mr. Henry L. Jewett secretary, both of whom have been important factors in promoting the success and increasing the business of the bank. The board of directors, in addition to President Graham, includes Hon. William Clafiin, who is also vice-president; Robert M. Morse, John Hogg, Lyman Nichols, A. N. Burbank, John C. Paige, ex-Congressman AVilliam W. Crapo, John P. Spaulding, Joseph S. Kendall, Hon. Patrick A. Collins, Thomas F. Temple, C. J. H. Woodbury and Aaron Davis Weld.

The Bay State Trust Company was incorporated in November, 18S7. It transacts a general banking business, and also acts as agent and trustee in connection with financial affairs, trustee on mortgages, and as trustee and registrar for railroad companies, etc., covering all of the functions usual to a regular trust company and safe deposit organization. In the banking department an active business is done, the resources aggregating $1,800,200.99, while in addition to the capital stock of $200,000 the company had at its last statement, October 1, 1892, accumulated a surplus fund of $25,000, and undivided earnings of $5,000, while it held depo.sits of $1,548,167.71. The business of the company is reposed in the hands of gentlemen of the highest standing in the community, Mr. Francis W. Hunnewell being president, and Mr. Alfred Rodman actuary. President Hunnewell is a director of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, identified with other important railroad and business interests, and is one of the best known of the capitalists in Boston; and Mr. Alfred Rodman, the actuary of the company, who is in active charge as executive manager, has had a long financial experience. Besides these gentlemen the board of directors includes Frederick L. Ames, John F. Anderson, T. Jefferson Coolidge, jr., Charles U. Cotting, George P. Gardner, Franklin Haven, jr., Walter Hunnewell, Henry S. Howe, Abbott Lawrence, William Minot, jr., Lucius M. Sargent, Nathaniel Thayer and Stephen M. Weld.

The American Loan and Trust Company was incorporated March I'/J, 1881, and commenced business, August 29 following, with a paid up capital of $100,000, which has since been increased to $1,000,000. This company receives deposits subject to check, allowing interest thereon, and extends to its patrons all the facilities for business that may be required of a banking corporation. It is a legal depository for administrators, executors, assignees, trustees, and guardians, and exercises all the privileges permitted by law to trust companies. The officers are: S. Endicott Peabody, president; E. A. Coffin, treasurer; N. W. Jordan, actuary ; Oliver Ames, Thomas Nickerson, George C. Lord, Albert A. Pope, Royal E. Robbins, F. Gordon Dexter, Frederick L. Ames, Isaac T. Burr, David P. Kimball, and S. Endicott Peabody, directors. From the report to the savings banks commissioners, October 31, 1892, the following figures are taken: Capital $1,000,000; assets $6,156,836.13; deposits $4,284,378.34; surplus fund $400,000; undivided profits $89,333.30. E. A. Coffin, the treasurer, and N. W. Jordan, the actuary, have been with the compan}- since 1881. Mr. Peabody is well known in financial circles both in Boston and New York.

The Old Colony Trust Company was organized in 1890. The statement of the company, dated October 31, 1892, made to the savings banks commissioners, showed, that in addition to the capital stock of $1,000,- 000 and surplus fund of $500,000, undivided earnings of $180,046.37 had been accumulated, while the company held deposits of $6,825,427. 78, and had total resources of $8,505,474.15. A regular banking business is transacted in all of its departments, the approved accounts of corporations, firms, and individuals being received, and interest allowed on all daily balances subject to check, loans made on acceptable security, and approved collateral on time and demand, and special attention is given to accounts with ladies. In addition to the usual banking departments the company acts as transfer agent, registrar and trustee under mortgages, and also conducts 'safe deposit vaults, which afford a convenient and secure place for the care of money and valuables. The president of the company is T. Jefferson Coolidge, jr., who, in addition to his position at the head of this compan)', is also a director of the National Bank of Commerce, the Bay State Trust Company, and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. C. S. Tuckerman, the vicepresident, is also a well known and prominent financier, and formerly connected with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad. Mr. George P. Gardner, the other vice-president, is also a director of the Bay State Trust Company; and Mr. E. A. Phippen, the secretary, is a gentleman of extended financial experience. The board of directors, in addition to the president, includes Frederick L. Ames, John F. Anderson, John L. Bremer, Martin Brimmer, T. Jefferson Coolidge, George F. Fabyan, George P. Gardner, Francis L. Higginson, Henry S. Howe, Walter Hunnewell, W. Powell Mason, George von L. Meyer, Laurence Minot, Richard Olney, Henry R. Reed, Lucius M. Sargent, Nathaniel Thayer, John L Waterbury, Stephen M. Weld, and Henry C. Weston.

The State Street Safe Deposit and Trust Company was chartered April 1:3, 1801, with a capital of $300,000 and a reserve liability of $:)00,000. It is authorized by law to serve as trustee under will and legal depository of trust funds, and of money paid into court, while it acts as registrar or transfer agent of stocks and bonds, and as trustee for railroad and other corporations. Deposits are also received subject to check and interest allowed, and exchange is bought and sold on London, Paris, Berlin and other leading cities of the continent. Business is transacted in the lower floor of the Exchange Building, where are located the largest and best fire and burglar proof safe deposit vaults in New England. The officers of the company are Moses Williams, president; Charles Lowell, treasurer and actuary; Frederic J. Stimpson, William L. Chase and Francis B. Sears, vice-presidents. The directors are Moses Williams, Edward Atkinson, Joseph B. Russell, Royal E. Robbins, Thomas O. Richardson, William L. Chase, Frederick J. Stimson, Francis B. Sears and Eliot C. Clark. The statement made by the officers of this company to the commissioners of savings banks, October 31, 18112, shows that the paid up capital amounted to $:5()0,0n(l; undivided earnings, $10,605.80; while it held deposits aggre- 080,002.-27, and had total banking resources. of $1,307,059.90.

The Mattapan L)cpt)sit and Trust Company was incorporated j\Iarch 7, 18!H, with an authorized capital of $100,000, and commenced business May IfJ, 1892. The officers are R. J. Monks, president; William Hidden, jr., actuary; and W. vS. Fretch, jr., secretary. The assets, October 31, LS1»2, were $384,175.37 ; deposits, $2()8,042.3(;.

The followiui^- table, made up from the reports of the various trust companies to the commissioners of savings banks, for the year ending, October 31, 1892, shows the condition of each institution at that time :

The Postal Service In Boston

NoiK. - The Postal Service at Boston has no bibliography. The office records appear to have been destroyed in the fire of 1872. The Massachusetts Archives contain valuable papers up to 1775, published in part by the Massachusetts Historical Society. For 1774 we have the " Collection of the Statutes relating to the Post-Office," New York; 1774, 174 pp., and the " Journal kept by Hugh Finlay " in 1773-74 (Brooklyn: 1867). A few papers for the period from 1775 to 1789 are in the Department of State at Washington. From that time forward the records of the Post-Office Department are the best authority. But they are not complete ; and after 1835 the accounts of the Post-Offices were kept by the Treasury. The period of the Postal Service throughout the country from 1789 to 1833 is covered by vol. X\' of the " American State Papers," edited by Lowrie and Franklin. . Since then the annual reports of the Post-Office Department are the chief authority. With these the Postal Laws and Regulations, issued periodically since 1798, should be consulted; al.so the Statutes at Large, being the backbone of our public history; the Official Register, issued biennially since 1817 ; the lists of Post Offices, issued at intervals up to 1873; and the Postal Guide, published by the Department since 1874. Postmaster-General Hall wrote the first history of the Post-Office Department ; it was published in 1852 as a " Report on Postal Affairs, " 82 pp. General Corse first gathered and published a brief history of the Boston Post-Office (see his Annual Statement, 1890). Fame and something better await him that will write the true history of the American postal service from the Neale patent in 1091-2 to the present time.

The history of the Post-Office combines in a peculiar union a history of the people and their supreme g-overnment. The Post-Office carries the secrets of the people, and exercises the highest prerogative of a sovereign power. Were it possible to recount all the Post-Office has done in Suffolk County, it would tell the business and personal affairs of oiir people as nothing else can; at the same time it would reveal the political histoi")' of our general government, and lay open a long and interesting chain of political evolution. For the Post-Office is simultanecHisly the confidential agent of every business firm and private letter writer, a vast business conducted on business principles, and a government institution of the highest type. It indicates with fair precision the character of government and the civilisation of the people at large. And the work of postal officers and clerks is far more technical than is generalh' thought. The payment of letter postage implies a contract, for the due execution of which the postal force is under heavy bonds to the gcjvernment, and liable at law to the sender or receiver of the letter. Nor is it clear who watches the service more jealously - the government, which in theory is omniscient and all-powerful, or the private citizen who demands perfection.

During the greater part of its history Suffolk Coimty has been a postal imit, with one postal administration. With few exceptions the territorial and administrative changes of the County have not touched the unity of its postal service. The history of the Boston Post-Olfice is almost coextensive with that of vSuffolk County. And the salient points in this history are equally prominent in our history as a Colony, as a Province, and as a Nation. These points are the age of ship letters mainly, in Colony times; the Neale patent of 1091-2; the reign of the British Post-Office Act from ll'll until 1774, when Franklin was removed from his office of American Postmaster-General; the Confederation period, illustrated in the Post-Office Act of 1783; and the National period, beginning with the adoption of the Constitution and the appointment of Samuel Osgood as Postmaster-General in 1780. The history of the Post-Office under the Constitution turns largely upon the great Post-Office Acts of 1792, 1825, 1836, IS-lo and 1872; but hardly less upon a long line of honorable Postmasters-General. For until 183() the Postmaster at Boston was .simply the agent and servant of the Postmaster-General at Washington; and since 183(; the Postmaster-General is still the master of the mails in Boston and all Suffolk Countv, limited only by the law of the land and the appropriations voted by Congress.

The area within the jurisdiction of the Boston Post-Office includes all Suffolk County, beside the cities of Cambridge and Somerville in Middlesex County, and the Town of Brookline in Norfolk County - a total of about sixt3'-three square miles, with a population on June 1, 1890, of (107,003. ()f these totals Suffolk County has an area of about forty- seven square miles, willi a population of -l:ti4,7S(i. The area named excludes the islands not served by the free delivery of mail matter. The annual increase of population is nearly three per cent., but differs with the state of prosperity. The bulk of the annual increase is due to iuiniij.;ration from the rural districts and from abroad. The present Postal District, exceeded in area by that of Philadelphia only, was substantially completed in 1875. In that year the Postal District assumed in a measure the same or similar proportions it had held from the earliest days until about 181G. An official list of Post-Otfices for 1S18 mentions those at Boston, Carribrid<je, Brighton, Charlestown and Milton as established, but no others in the present Postal District. Ln ITS'.l, when Washington became President, the only Post-Offices in Massachusetts were Boston, Salem, Ipswich, Newbirryport, Worcester and Springfield, although the Province Congress of 1775 had ordained that there should be Post-Offices also in Cambridge, Georgetown, Haverhill, Great Barrington, Sandwich, Falmouth, and Plymouth, that at Cambridge .standing really for Boston, which at that time was occupied by British troops. With the exception of the period from ISIU to 1S75, the Boston Post-Office served, speaking roughly, the present District. To form an idea of this Postal District in the past, the national Census reports should be used with some caution, mainly on account of the changes in Town and County lines, and in some names. In 188<) the population of the Postal District was 473,58(i; in 1870, when We'st Roxbury was still in Norfolk, and Charlestown, like Brighton, in Middlesex, the population of the District was o7o,744. In 1850, when Dorchester and Roxbury were still in Norfolk, the present Postal District had -i21,f.'.lo inhabitants; against but 88,354 in 1830; 49,054 in 1810; and 25,022 in 1700. The Province Census of 1705, sufficiently accurate to convey a general idea, reports the population of the present Postal District at 22,709. In 1742 B:>ston alone is supposed to have had a population of 10,382; in 1720 about 11,000 ; in 1075 about 4,000; and when Fairbanks was appointed Postmaster of Boston in 1039, the Town proper was a small village, with one church, and a hundred houses. The church stood in State Street, on the site of the present Brazer's Building, and was a structure of mud walls with a thatched roof. The foreign element that has helped to increase the present population has come very largely from the United Kingdom and Briti.sh North America. The original stock was mainly English; the present stock is chieflv British, the term including Ireland and the Maritime Provinces.

One might add that the settlement of New England was due to Independence in religion, attracted by fish, sustained by agriculture and commerce, and made great by manufacturing, commerce, and true industry. Boston owes much, also, to its magnificent harbor, which is never icelocked. Nor is it unfair to add that the Postal District of Boston attracts what is best in the character and ambition of New England, except from Rhode Island and Connecticut, whose tendency is toward New York.

The first Postmaster at Boston was' Richard Fairbanks, appointed Nov. 5, 10311, by the General Court, which had charge of government affairs in the infant colony. The quaint order is as follows; "For preventing the miscarriage of letters; and it is ordered that notice bee given that Richard Ffairbanks his house in Boston is the place appointed for all letters which are brought from beyond the seas, or are to bee sent thither ; are to bee brought unto, & he is to take care that they bee delivered, or sent according to their directions, & hee is alowed for every such letter a lci'& must answere all miscarriages through his owne neglect in this kind; provided that no man shalbee compelled to bring his letters thither, except hee please. " Fairbanks was made a freeman of the Colony in 10:54; in 1037 he was "disarmed;" in 1037-8 he was allowed to sell " wine & strong water" in Boston; in 105"-2 he bought a house and six acres in " Fort Field " (about Fort Hill), Boston; in 1053 his daughter Constance married Samuel Mattock ; and in 1054-5 " Richard Fairebank " signed a marriage contract for Alice Dynely. He kept the most frecj^uented house in Boston, and appears to have had the confidence of his fellow townsmen. His place of business and home occu. pied the present site of the Advertiser and (Jlobe buildings in Washington vStreet. It will be noticed that his postal duties were confined to sea letters; there was no occasion for a domestic mail. In 1030 England had but a feeble beginning of a postal service, and that was not conducted by the government. The English Post-Office as a government institution, with a Pf)stmaster-General, began in 1000. In 107-i New York ordered a "post to go monthly from New York to Boston," postage to be prepaid; but the order was not carried out very well.

When Richard Fairbanks was appointed Postmaster of Boston, Henry Vane had left the Colony, William Bradford was Governor of Plymouth, and John Winthrop once more of Massachusetts. The boundary between the two cokmies, established h\ the last Plymouth patent, was a straight line from " Cohasset rivulet" to the Seekonk river, being still the southern bdundary of what is now called Norfolk County, except that Hingham and Hull were not in Plymouth. At that time counties had not been established in Massachusetts, and Town officers were not yet called Selectmen. Boston extended all the wa}' from Weymouth and Plymouth Colony to Lynn; Braintrec was called ]\Iount Wollaston, or simpl)' the Mount, which reached south as far as Plymouth, and west to the top of the great Blue Hill, being a part of Boston as much as were Brookline, then called Mudd_v River; East Boston (Noddle's Island), Breed's Island (Hog Island), Chelsea (Winni.simmet), Revere (Rumney Marsh), and Winthrop (Pullen Point). The bulk of this territory had been divided among the inhabitants, Edmund Quincy having a generous allotment at Wollaston, Winthrop at Pullen Point, whence the present names. The Book of Possessions did not exist. After the land had been given away, it was found necessary to make some provision for streets, lanes and highways. What trees there stood in Boston proper had been cut down, and fresh supplies were taken from the harbor islands, Muddy River, and even South Boston, which belonged to the Town of Dorchester. There was no church bell in Boston, but a court with jurisdiction over all Bcjston, together with the independent towns of Roxbury, Dorchester, Weymouth and Hingham, Charlestown, also independent, had its court in Cambridge. Boston Common had just been recognised ; at the same time the Town gloried in a drummer, a gunner and a ft>rt. Every Thursday a market was held, on the principles of medieval law and custom. A regular ferry plied between Boston, Charlestown and Winnisimmet.

The Latin School and Harvard College were established, and vStephen Day had set up his printing press. Boston proper contained about a hundred houses, mostly btxilt of wood or mud walls, and covered with thatched roofs. It had one church. When Town meetings were to be held, notice was sometimes given from house to house. No street had a name, and most streets were about what the abutters chose to make them. The constable did police duty in daytime, and watchmen in the night, there being great danger from fire. The Town was overrun by cattle, swine and goats, and Richard Fairbanks was the poundkeeper. There was but one lawyer in the town, and he had been disbarred. Nominally the Town and the Colony were a democracy; in truth they were a political and social aristocracy, watching with pardonable anxiety that disturbing elements be kept out of the infant settlement; for the existence of the colony was more important than the individual with interesting notions as to liberty, faith or government. The people lived by trade, especially with England; by farming in Wollaston, Muddy River and Winnisimmet ; and by the fisheries that had helped to attract the original settlers. When the Town meeting or the General Court were unable or unwilling to decide matters, it was customary from the beginning to appoint committees or commissioners. Fort Hill was built by commissioners. Richard Fairbanks was selected to receive and despatch all letters that might be exchanged between the people of the Colony and of Great Britain. Perhaps such an arrangement was proper. When Boston had a town hall, that became the exchange and a sort of informal post-oflice, for the handling of ship letters.

On January (i, 1(;7:j-4, the General Court of the Colony passed the following: "Whereas the publick occasions of the country doe freqtiently recjuire that messengers be sent post, and, as yet, no stated allowance setled in such cases, it is ordered by this Court & the authorit}' thereof, that from henceforth euery person so .sent vpon the publicke service of the country shallbe allowed by the Treasurer after the rate of three pence a mile to the place to which he is sent, in money, as full sattisfaction for the expence of horse & man; and no inholder shall take of anv such messenger or others travayling vpon publicke service more than two shillings/' bushell for oates, and fower pence for hay, day & night." This is the first allusion to a domestic post in New England; but before the American Post-Officc was established in l(i93, the merchants and others of Boston caused John Hay ward, in 1(;7'7, to be appointed by the General Court for the place first held by Richard Fairbanks. The petitioners complained that " many times the Letters imported are throwne upon the Exchg, .so that who will, may take them up; no person (without some satisfaction) being willing to trouble their houses therewith ; so that Letters of great moment are frequently Lost. " Hayward was appointed June 1, 1(177, and, at his own request, reappointed in KiSO. He appears to have died in 1087, though vSewall states on February 26, l(i'.)l-2, " Jno Hayward brings me a letter." But Sewall states expre.s.sly, "Dec. 2, l(iS7. About 10 at night Mr. Jno Hayward dies." Hayward's will is dated July S, l(i87, and was admitted to probate on February 23, lii87-8. He had two sons, Samuel and John, and the latter may have continued his father's work. Hayward, the Postmaster, was a notary in good standing. , He had a house in

" Condit " Street, now North Street. He was the first to be called "Postmaster," in 1080, and his office the "post-office." In l(i8(! he took a room in the town house, where the exchange was kept. The room was less than five by ten feet.

An Act of Parliament having settled the revenue of the Post-Officc upon the Duke of York, an attempt was made to establish an American Post-Office for the special benefit of the Duke. The attempt was apparently confined to New York. In 1(184 vSir John Werden wrote to Governor Dongan: "As for setting up Post Houses along the coast from Carolina to Nova Scotia^ it seemes a very reasonable thing, and you may offer the priviledge thereof to an}^ undertaker for ye space of 3 or 5 yeares by way of farme : reserving wt part of ye proffit you thinke fitt to the Duke (not less than one-tenth), the farmers to acct to ye Duke either upon oath or by inspection into their bookes, or any other wav well you shall judge convenient & safe for the Duke, to know the true value thereof. And we thinke 3'ou were much in the right when you asserted that the Dukes title to the proffitts of all Post Offices wthin his Majts dominions was not to be doubted, but is intended over all the forreigne plantations as well as in Europe."

The attempt could not succeed. There was not enough correspondence along the line from Carolina to Nova .Scotia to support a weekly mail, and the arrival of Andros added to the natural difficulties of the proposition, though he found Post-Offices in the larger ports from New Hampshire to Philadelphia. Edward Randolph is thought to have acted as a sort of Postmaster-General for New England. Boston imprisoned him together with Andros, on June 11, 1689, and soon after Richard AVilkins was appointed Postmaster at Boston. Like his predecessors, he received one penny for every letter he took or delivered. But as late as February 20, l(J'.)l--2, Sewall wrote: " Jno Hayward brings me a letter." A few weeks later Andrew Hamilton was appointed American Po.stmaster-General. The Colony period really ended; the Province period began. A permanent Post-Office was established. Wilkins was a bookseller. His office was oppose the town hall. On May 31, 1090, John Knight, of Charlestown, was appointed " a Post for the Country's service, as Occasion may be," and on July 14 of the same year the General Court voted "that a Post be setled for Speedy Intelligence between this place [Boston] and Road island."

Until Hamilton was appointed Postmaster-General, neither the office nor the name had existed in America. Engfland had no PostmasteribO SUFFOLK COUNTY.

-General until the Act of 1000 established the office. And Enj^land borrowed the name, if not the office, from the European continent. The Netherland.s had a Postmaster in 154:5; the German Empire had a Postmaster-General in 1015. But the Empire took the term "post" from the French, who inherited it directly from the later Latin ; and even the term "master" was simply a translation or adaptation of the word Matt re applied by Louis XI to the chief of his post riders. The term "mail" came later, also from the French, and looks Celtic. With the post came the newspaper, preferentially called "Post," at least in early days. And our folk-speech calls a well-informed person ' ' jjosted. " Recent days have given us the ' ' poster, " and a club member neglecting to pay his dues is "posted." " Post haste " is a term used by Ascham. To post a letter means to mail it. Thus a variety of uses attaches to the plain word that came to us from Caesar's positi cquitcs. It came to us through England, which took it from the continent opposite, and the people there inherited it from classical Rome. But our American Post-Office, as a Government institution, was not fully established without great struggles in politics, law, and society. The Boston Post-Office reflected all these interesting movements. The word post was first applied to regular post riders, by the French, in 1487. In 1701 John Dunton published the "Post-Angel," a periodical.

The English Post-Office Act of 1600 authorised the Crown to grant the Office of Postmaster-General for life or a term of years not exceeding twenty-one, and the establishment of Post-Offices "in England, vScotland and Ireland, and other of His Majesty's Dominions." An Act of 1685 gave the Post-Office revenue to the King, who was the same person that as Duke of York had i-eceived this revenue since KiOli. On the strength of this authority Sir Robert Cotton and Thomas Frankland were appointed Postmasters-General on March 11, 1600-1, and Frankland was in office as late as 1716. The office is said to have yielded the king some _^60,000 a year, or more. With a view to future receipts, a commis.sion or patent for America was given to Thomas Neale. It was to run for twenty-one years, from February 17, Ki'.H, to February 17, 1712 (O.S. ), and under this patent Andrew Hamilton was commissioned American Postmaster-General on April 4, 1092. He is indeed the Father of the American Post-Office, gratefully remembered also by East Jersey, of which he was Governor. Before he came to this country, where he was greatly beloved, he was a merchant at Edinburgh. The Andros muddle led him to England, where he received his Post-Oiifice commission. He returned forthwith to America, pur-, sued the Post-OfSce scheme with the greatest energy and remarkable success, and when he died, on April 2(!, 17(i:!, he left the Post-Office in the worthy hands of his son, John Hamilton, who continued as Postmaster-General to 1730. Andrew Hamilton made the first attempt at a certain union and a certain legislative uniformity between the colonies from New Hampshire to Virginia. His patent granted a postal monopoly for all America and the West Indies. His unique service; besides establishing a weekly mail between Piscataqua (Portsmouth), N. H., and Philadelphia, consisted in getting each colony to pass a postal act in harmony with every other, and in obtaining subsidies.

Virginia fixed the rate of postage at 3^;'. a letter up to eighty miles, and xy-id. beyond. New York helped liberally; in 1094 it voted a subsid}^ of ;£50 for three years. New Hampshire gave a subsidy of ;^2') a year. Connecticut voted free ferries to the postal service. And Massachusetts, beside passing the great Post-Olfice Act of 1693, gave liberal supplies. The Massachusetts Post-Office Act, passed for the effectual encouragement of the general Post-Office, for the better preservation of trade and commerce, and "for the quicker maintenance of mutual correspondence amongst all the neighboring Colonies and Plantations," including the West Indies, gave Hamilton's deputy Postmaster at Boston a monopoly, with authorit}' to charge 2<y. for ship letters ; 4c/. for a triple letter, then called a packet ; 6c/. for Rhode Island letters, which included carriage ; Oc/. for Connecticut letters ; Yld. for New York letters; 15c/. for New Jersey and Pennsylvania; 'Is. for Maryland and Virginia; -Id. for Salem; 4c/. for Ipswich and Newburyport; 6c/ for Piscataqua (N. H.). For letters delivered at houses, not being called for within forty-eight hours after their arrival at the Post-Office, the Postmaster was to have \d. each. Private posts were prohibited under a fine of £\() for each offence, one-half to go to the Governor, one-half to the Postmaster-General. The incoming mail was to be marked with a receiving " print " showing the date. Hamilton was required to maintain "constant posts" between Boston and the points named, and " all letters of publick concernment for their Majesties' service " were to be carried free. The Act was once renewed, but proved somewhat premature. The Privy Council rejected it ; yet it stood as far as the nature of the case permitted. A regular postal service between Portsmouth, N. H., and Virginia was at that time financially impossible.

In the same year, l(i'.)3, Hamilton appointed Duncan Campbell Postmaster at Boston, authority for the appointment having- been conferred by the Neale patent and the Province Act. Very little is known of Campbell. In KiOG he lost a daughter; he himself appears to have died in 17ll"2. He wrote numerous petitions for aid from the Pnjvince. In lG'.)-t Hamilton was voted _{^ 3 5 for two years: a similar vote for one 3'ear was passed in 1006; his deputy at Boston desired freedom irom taxes, and a license to sell liquor; he affirmed that the "charges of this Post-Office are thrice the income." He died insolvent, his estate being appraised at ^1,372 17 5; the debt allowed being //2.8til 15 5. The creditors received eight shillings in the pound. Campbell appears to have dealt also in books, his estate including twenty Hebrew, Greek, and Latin folios; fifty-eight Latin folios; one hundred and fort3^-nine Greek and Latin folios and quartos, etc. The probate records mention him July 29, 1702, as recently deceased; his widow, Susanna Campbell, was executrix; John Campbell helped in settling the estate, and succeeded him as Postmaster. Duncan Campbell appears to have been Postmaster of Massachusetts; he certainly was " Master of the General Letter Office," as distinguished from the offices of Salem, Ipswich and Newbury; John Campbell was "Master of the Post-office of Boston and New England," and "Postmaster of New England." He filled the place worthily, though he was removed in 1718, probably because his office did not pay enough to the Postmaster-General in London.

John Campbell was born about 1G53; Andrew Hamilton appointed him Postmaster of Boston and New Eingland about 1702. On April 24, 170-t, he began the publication of the weekly News-Letter, the first sue-" cessful newspaper in America. In the great fire of 1711 Campbell's entire establishment was destroyed; in 1718 he retired from the Post- Office, for the reason that it was not as remunerative as the Postmaster- General in London desired; his wife died in 1722; Campbell died in 1728, leaving behind him an honorable name, numerous records, and two married daughters, Sarah being the wife of James Bowdoin, and Elizabeth the wife of William Foye. Both sons-in-law were Councillors of Massachusetts; Foye was Treasurer of the Province for many years, and Bowdoin's name was destined to occupy an eminent place in the history of Massachusetts. Campbell's home and place of business was in Cornhill, now Washington Street, below vSchool Street. He had the respect and confidence of his fellow townsmen to a remarkable degree, and he carried himself with dignity and self-respect under many em- barrassments and difficulties.- In his postal career he witnessed the virtual transfer of the Neale patent to Andrew Hamilton, the administration of John Hamilton, the superseding of the patent by the Parliament Act of 1710, and his own unjust removal, embittered by the frivolous attacks of his successor, who himself came to an ignominious end. The men who laid the actual foundation of the American postal service were vScotchmen by birth. In 1727-2S John Campbell was president of the Scots' Charitable Society, which he had joined, in 1(;84, as a "stranger." At the time of the great fire, in 1711, he had a house in Pudding lane, now Devonshire Street.

In John Campbell's days there was a weekly mail in summer, fortnightly in winter, between Port.smouth, N. H., and Philadelphia. It followed the shore line, the offices at Worcester, Springfield and Hartford being established later. The post routes deviating from the main line were called cross-roads, but were mostly or all established after Campbell's reign. In 171)3 he computed the cost of the mail service between New Hampshire and Philadelp],iia at ;^0SO, of which he charged two-thirds to the account of New England. To cover this expense of £'.M 15 (i a month, he reported a revenue of ^12 12 8 a month from the Boston Post-Office; and ^0 -I S due from the Post-Offices under his jurisdictitm; leaving a monthly deficit of ^15 8 2. On the basis of actual receipts for the week preceding this report, the receipts being ^2 11 10 on inward mails, and ^1 11 on outgoing matter, he computed a deficit of ^"275 for the year. He announced at the same time that Hamilton was "out of purse, several years ago, ^1,400 sterling in setleing" the American Post-Office, and that Hamilton "was necessitated to take a mortgage of said [Neale] patent, or else have nothing, so that the priviledge of said patent now devolves upon Collo : Hamilton and his heires. " Campbell expressed great discouragement.

The Province, however, sustained him liberally. He was exempted from militia duty "during his employment as Postmaster;" for his first year in office he received ^20; ^^40 for the next, when the News- Letter was begun; and another payment up to October 30, 1700. After the great fire of 1711, no Province aid having been given since 1700, he received an indirect allowance of ;i^l43 3 11. With this payment the Neale patent ended, and the Post-Office passed under the control of Parliament law, which continued imtil 1775, and is embodied in the interesting Act of 1710, and the "Collection of the Statutes now in force relating to the Post-Office," New York: 1774, 174 pp. The rates es- tablished by Massachusetts were continued until 1711, when the new rates, established by Parliament, took effect. For the rest, Campbell strugg;led with the same problems that still tax the Post-Office. He advocated the prepayment of postage ; he fought for the monopoly of the service; he demanded that the public use the nearest Post-Office "under some penalty;"' and he suggested that "all persons concerned in said, [Post I Office shall be free from watchings, trainings, or any public service [for the Province], and either freed from rates, or excise free, or some other benefit equal to it." In other words, he claimed for the postal service something like national allegiance only. A later law exempted the Post-Office from militia and jury duty; but this was in part repealed, and as yet the postal force struggles, like Campbell, for a selfsustaining service, the members of which are to enjoy a certain immunity from local burdens, on the ground that they render general and generous services to the country at large.

The British Post-Office Act of 1710, known as 9 Annae, c. 10, was occasioned by the expenses of the war that ended with the peace of Utrecht - a peace not wholly beneficent to the interests of Englishspeaking America. Incidentally the Act made the Post-Office tributary to the national excheqtier ; previously its profits had gone to the Crown. The memorable instrument was fitly called "An Act for establishing a General Post-Office for all Her Majesty's Dominions;" it authorised the appointment of a Postmaster-General for Great Britain, Ireland, North America, and the West Indies; and it required the establishment of "chief letter offices" in London, Edinburgh, Dublin, the " Leward Islands," and New York. Of the gross receipts ^?00 a week and all in excess of _;^1 11,461 17 10, this being the total income of the British Post-Office in the year ended September 29, 1710, was to be at the disposal of Parliament. With a disregard of American interests not foreign to Parliament, the British Post-Office was allowed less than ^75,000 for the conduct of its business ; specific postage rates were prescribed for the American Post-Office; the revenue from America was to be covered into the exchequer; and the American Post-Office was either to live on nothing, or to receive a share of the _^75,000 allowed for the management of the British Post-Office. And yet the Act was accepted without protest. Hamilton appears to have sold his Post-Office rights and property acquired under the Neale patent; he was continued as Postmaster-General ; and the Virginia Burgesses declined to grant

In theory, the Postmaster-General at London was supreme, and appointed all his subordinates, the American Postmaster-General included ; in practice, the latter manajjed the American service, and appointed his own subordinates. The Act provided for free ferries in the Aniercan postal service; and section 44 of the Act charged the members of the postal service not to meddle with any elections, under a penalty of _;<^100, half to go to the poor, half to the informer. The postage rates for America were prescribed in section (J :

New York to Newport, Providence, Boston, Portsmouth, R. L, or Annapolis.l shilling. New York to Salem, Ipswich, Piscataway, or to Williamsburg in Virginia. Is. 3d. New York to "Charlestown," S. C Is. 6d.

It will be noticed that the consent of the Colonies was not asked. Under the Neale patent the rates of postage in America could be and in part were established by the Colonies, There was some opposition to the Post-Office monopoly in Virginia; but Hamilton was not greatly resisted in his work. Alexander Spotswood, his successor, aided the enterprise as early as 1711), though regretting the absence of a postal currency, tobacco alone being used for that purpose in Virginia. Hamilton, who was justly respected, tried in vain to make the Post-Office pay for itself.

Meanwhile he was not wholly free to do as he preferred. In 1718 the London authorities removed John Campbell, the New England Postmaster, and appointed Philip Musgrave in his place. Musgrave's appomtment was dated June 27, 1718, in London; on September 13, possibly before the arrival of Musgrave's appointment, Hamilton placed William Brooker in charge - a step he had occasion to regret. Musgrave took possession of the Boston Post-Office in the summer of 1720, thus ending the stormy interregnum of Brooker. To be the equal of Campbell, Brooker started a paper of his own, called the Gazette, the first number of which appeared on December 21, 1719. He undertook to assail the reputation of his predecessor, but was forced to retire before many weeks from the Gazette as well as from the Post-Office. In the same summer he married an heiress, Joanna Riehards; but the heiress stipulated through John Hamilton that she should retain full control of her property. Shorth' afterwards Brooker became insolvent, and on Februar}- 28, K20-1, he assigned his property rights to John Boydell and others. He owed some ^635 in all, ^100 to Postmaster Musgrave. After this he disappears from the records of the time; his widow survived imtil 1759, when she left numerous bequests, among them the Brooker fund for poor widows still held b}^ the City of Boston. Brook- .er's successor in the Boston Post-Office was Philip Musgrave, a man of good standing, who continued the Gazette, and died in May, 1725, leaving a fair estate. He appears to have had interests also in England. His son William was rector at Aldwinkle, in Northamptonshire, and in settling the estate remittances had to be made to London, the executor, John Boydell, paying jQ'i in Boston for £^\ sterling payable in England. The Massachusetts pound and the pound sterling were not the same, and Massachusetts had an inflated paper currency almost throughout the eighteenth century.

The next Postmaster, Thomas Lewis, served less than a year, when he died. His administrator, John Boydell, collected ^54 1 G from Henry Marshall, who .succeeded Lewis as Postmaster, and served until 1732, when he died. Marshall was a rich man. His funeral wtis a great event, the estate paying ^64 14 3 for funeral rings alone. While Lewis was Postmaster, John Hamilton was replaced by Postmaster- General Alexander Spotswood, who was appointed in 1730, and served until 1739. It is likely that Hamilton was removed for not making satisfactory remittances to the exchequer in London. When Lewis died, John Boydell, acting as attorney for Postmaster-General Spotswood, collected ^106 7 0 from the estate; and one postrider, John Thomas, collected ^32 18. The country Post-Offices in New England were still subordinate to the Boston office; it was still the fashion to deliver mail matter before the postage due was collected ; and though the revenue was small, new offices were established. In 1732 Bristol, R. I., had its Post-Office, and Spotswood, who had been interested in the postal service as early as 1710, could boast that he was Postmaster- General of North America, including the West-India Islands, " to benefit trade and promote his Majestj^'s revenue." The domestic mail was intended to go and come once a week ; the Post-Office was usually in Cornhill, now Washington Street, below School Street; in 1727 it was " on the north side of the Town House;" under Marshall it was usually described as being in Kiny Street, now State Street. The Postmaster generally lived in the Post-< )ffice ; and as Postmasters did not pay postage on tlieir own mail matter, the}- were usually publishers of highly respectable, if not liveh', newspapers.

Upon the death of Marshall, John Boydell, the Register of Probate, took the Post-Offiee, but retired in 1734. He had the special confidence of the people, and had previously become familiar with postal affairs. He died in ITiiO. Upon retiring from the Post-Oifice in 1734, he was succeeded by Ellis Huske, who was a remarkable man, though his name is almost forgotten. He lived in Portsmouth, N. H., where he took a leading part in affairs, accumulating a considerable fortune, which he bequeathed to his son John, who became a member of Parliament and was greatly disliked in Boston for the part he took in the American Stamp Act. The father was not an outspoken patriot. It appears that he was born about 1700. In 17'20 he married Mary Plaisted. They had four children: John, who became famous or notorious; Olive, who married John Rindge; Anne, who married Edmund Ouincy, jr. ; andMar)-, who married John Sherburne, Governor Belcher appointed Huske Naval Officer at Portsmouth in 1730; while he was Postinaster of New England, he was also Councillor of New Hampshire; from 1739 to 1754 he was a member of the Supreme Court, finally as chief justice of New Hampshire. Immediatel}' after his appointment as Postmaster, he began the publication of our third newspaper, the Post-Boy, which was a mild supporter of Governor Belcher and the cause of lo)^- alism. Huske continued the Post-Boy and the Boston Post-Office either until his death in 1755, or until the advent of the Franklins in the American Post-Office. He was Postmaster of Boston as late as December 23, 1754. But if he ever was anything like Postmaster-General, he was replaced in 1753 b}' Franklin and Hunter. In the Boston Post- Office he was succeeded by John Franklin, the brother of Benjamin.

The work in the Boston Post-Office during the Huske period was done by deputies, William Brock serving until 1748, and afterwards Samuel Holbrook, later on master of the school in Queen Street, now Court Street. Both deputies were men in good standing. Brock had arranged a new set of account books for the Town of Boston in 1743, and Holbrook was for a time Deputy Secretary of the Province. Their chief, Huske, may be said to have been the last of the royal Postmasters in Boston; he certainly was the last to be loyal to the crown. Though he was Postmaster of Boston, and publisher of a Boston paper that claimed to be issued "by authcirity," he beloiij^ed in New Hampshire. His Boston office was in Dock Square, " near the Conduit, at the head of the Town Dock." In 1T45 it was removed to Queen Street, now Court Street, near the prison. His descendants, thrtiuyh his daughters, are numerous and justly honored.

From Huske wc proceed to the American Post-Oifice - American in character, and American before long in law, if not in energy. For as yet the Post-Office was a small affair. It is doubtful whether the entire receipts of the American Post-Office under Parliament law ever reached the sum of $25,000 in any year. Out of this the salaries of the Post, masters, the transportation of the weekly mail between Maine and Geoi-gia, and the profits of the British exchequer had to be defrayed. The English Postmaster-General complained of the returns he received ; the American patrons of the Post-Office did not complain, except of slow mails, and did not hasten to make the postal service remunerative. Boston remained the chief Post-Office in New England, and apparently in charge of the New-England country offices; but the Act of 1710 made New York the central office of the country. The Postmaster- General had his office in Philadelphia or New York, until it was removed to Washington.

Benjamin Franklin was American Postmaster-General from 1753 to 1774 under British authority, and 1775-76 under the authority of the Continental Congress. He appointed his brother John to succeed Huvske as Postmaster of Boston. John Franklin published the first list of unclaimed letters then in his office ; it appeared in the News Letter, originally John Campbell's paper, and indicates what territory was served in 1755 by the Boston Post-Office. He died on January 30, 175G, and was succeeded by his stepson, Tuthill Hubbart, who continued until the Boston Post-Office was lost in the storms of the Revolution. Hubbart's service as Postmaster ended about 1776, or possibly during the siege of Boston. He died in 1808 at the age of eighty-eight. He had been for forty years an esteemed underwriter. From 1780 to 1784 he served as Selectman. Benjamin Franklin's fellow Postmaster-General, from 1753 to 1761, was William Hunter, of Williamsburg, Va. ; then John Foxcroft, of New York, from 1761 to 1774.

With the dismissal of Benjamin Franklin and the retirement of Tuthill Hubbart from the Post-Office, ended the dominion of Queen Anne's Post-office Act over America. Our early Post-Office was distinctly American, it acted under American law, and received support from the

Colonial governments. This ended when Parliament prescribed postage rates for America, and when the Postmaster-General in London undertook to remove the honorable Postmaster at Boston and to appoint another in his place. When the Post-Office was identified with the Province, the official mail of the Province was carried free; when the Post-Office was made a feeder of the British exchequer, at least in theory and by statute, the Province was required to pay postage. In 1748 Huske presented a bill iox £\b\ 11 10; in 1749 his deputy, Samuel Holbrook, charged ^^3 15 for a Province packet or large letter to Rhode Island, and ;,^12 6 in 1750 for a large packet received for the the Province from New York. In 1758 Tuthill Hubbart presented a bill of _^"54 1 4 for postage against the Province; for the two years ended September 25, 17G0, the bill was £\Ti 3 4, and the fact was no doubt noticed that these bills of 1758 and 17G0 ended with Michaelmas, or the same period when the British exchequer closed its accoimts. For three New-York newspapers, carried three years, the Boston Post- Office charged ^7 10, or at the rate of 17^. ^d. a year each. That was in May, ITGl ; and in 17G5 Deputy-Postmaster Hubbart presented a bill of /;'4() 19 9 for postage against the Province. His last bill against the Province was for ^oG 10 1, covering the period from July 5, 1773, to June 18, 1874.

Benjamin Franklin was appointed American Postmaster-General to make the British Post-Office in America acceptable to the people; he did not succeed; he could not succeed; and very likely he did not care to succeed, though he intimates that he made ample remittances of Post-Office profits to London. In 175G Governor Dinwiddle called it "shameful tediousness " that his letters were five weeks in coming from New York to "\'^irginia. In 17G1 Franklin was scolded because the mail between New York and Philadelphia went b}' the way of Trenton instead of Perth Ambo}% as originally; in 17G4 the Earl of Halifax wanted a Post-Office map of America, ^iloll's sketch map of 1729 having been forgotten or thought insufficient. The authorities in London were not satisfied; the American Post-Office authorities were distinctl)' dissatisfied, despite Franklin's personal popularity, and the people were ready for a change of system. The change came abruptly, it took place all along the line, and the Post-Office was the first independent Department organised by independent America. Its origin was political ; its purpose, political union.

The British gDV'crnment dismissed Franklin, previously called "our joint Deputy Postmaster-General of America," in January, 1774, ostensibly for his connection with the Hutchinson letters. In the same year the Province Congress of Massachusetts met ; and while Boston was in the hands of a British army the Province Congress organised a postoffice for Massachusetts, and the Continental Congress established the American Post-Office. On May 13, 177.5, the Province Congress at Watertown established fourteen Post-Offices in Massachusetts: Cambridge, which stood also for Boston; Salem, Ipswich and Newbury, where there had been Post-Offices for fifty years; Havei-hill, Georgetown, Worcester, Springfield, Great Barrington, .Sandwich, Falmouth in Barnstable County, Plymouth - all in Massachusetts proper; and Falmouth in Cumberland County, besides " Kennebeck or Wells" in Maine. The first Postmaster at Cambridge under the Province Congress was James Winthrop, appointed May i:i, 1775; he soon resigned, and on July 8, 1775, Jonathan Hastings was appointed in his place. After the evacuation of Boston by the British, Hastings removed his Post-Office to Boston, on April 35, 177(i, and administered it until 1S08. Hastings, who was born on August 3, 1751, belonged to a respected family in Cambridge; his father was a distinguished patriot, and it was from his house, on June 17, 1775, that Joseph Warren went forth to Bunker Hill, glory, and death. Jonathan Hastings was also a Harvard graduate in the class of 1768. His descendants are still living. The Province Congress f)f 1775 prescribed the following rates of postage for Massachusetts, payable in the "lawful money of this Colony:"

Double letters, consisting of two sheets of paper, paid double rates ; treble letters paid treble rates; letters weighing an ounce paid quadruple rates. The Postmasters were sworn, and their bond was fixed at ;^100 each. The Province Congress proceeded in this business subject to action on the part of the Continental Congress; and the order of May 13, 1775, was coupled significantly with a resolution "to prevent any Town or District taking any notice of his Excellency Gen. Gage's precepts for calling a General Assembh'. " The Continental Congress acted forthwith.

The Postal Service. 4P,1

On ilay 10, liTS, the Continental Congress appointed a committee to consider the best means of establishing posts for conveying letters and intelligence throughout the country, and on July 26, 177o, the true birthday of the American Post-Office, Benjamin Franklin was chosen PdStmaster-General, for the purpose of running a line of posts from Falmouth, or Portland, in Maine, to Savannah in Georgia, with as many cross posts as he might think Ht. His salary was fixed at !^l,Ol)(i, tliat of Richard Bache, his secretary and comptroller, as well as son-in-law, at $340. Not to be outdone by Massachusetts, the Continental Congress, which had established a Post-office Department before the Declaration of Independence, recommended that postriders be placed at intervals of twenty-five or thirty miles, and that they carry the mail tlirce times a week. In the absence of Franklin, Richard Bache was chosen Postmaster-General on November 7, 1776, and continued to serve until January 28, 1782, when Ebenezer Hazard was appointed in his place, with James Bryson as the First Assistant or Clerk. Hazard served until Washington was elected President and appointed Samuel Osgood Postmaster-General. The changes were usnalh' due to the fact that the Post-Office, notwithstanding orders to tlie contrary, failed to be remunerative. The charge of inefficiency brought against Bache and Hazard amounts to little else. It is the same fate that overtook Campbell in 1718, Hamilton in 173(1, and many Postmasters as well as some Postmasters-General since tlien. But Post-Office receipts cannot be materially increased by the urging of those in charge; beneficent laws and public patronage alone can make the Post-Office rich or self-supsupporting.

The Continental Congress made Philadelphia the seat of the American Postmaster-General, and fixed tlie salaries of Postmasters at ten per cent. <m receipts exceeding ijpl.duii a j^ear, and twenty per cent, in case receipts remained below $1,()()0. In 1777 Congress authorised the appointment of an Inspector of Dead Letters at a salary of $100 a year, and the rates of postage were raised fifty per cent. In 177i) the salary of the Postmaster-General was raised to $2,000 first, then to $3,500, and postage was fixed at twenty times the rates of 1775. At the same time Congress demanded for itself a semiweekly mail. In 1780 the salary of the Postmaster-General was reduced to $1,000, that of his secretary and comptroller to $500, and postage was reduced. On October 19, 1781, the postage rates of 1775 were restored. Postmasters were allowed salaries not exceeding twenty per cent, of their receipts, and the salary of the Postmaster-General was fixed at $1,250, that of his Assistant or Clerk at $800. On October 18, 1782, soon after the appointment of Postmaster-General Hazard, Congress passed the famous Post-Oflice Ordinance, which controlled until May :51, 1702.

The Articles of Confederation, adopted in 1777, and signed in 1778, had continued the Post-Office work of the Continental Congress, and provided in Article IX that the " United .States, in Congress assembled, shall have the sole and exclusive right- and power ... of establishing and regulating Post-Offices from one .State to another, throughout all the United .States, and exacting such postage on the papers passing through the same as may be requisite to defray the expense of the said offices." It was under this authority that the Post-office Ordinance of 1782 was adopted. It declared the Post-Office to be "essentially requisite to the safety as well as the commercial interest " of the United States, and the function of the Post-Office was happily defined as "the communication of intelligence with regularity and despatch." The mail was to be carried regularly between New Hampshire and Georgia, and elsewhere when required. A single sheet remained the unit of letters; letter postage, owing to the state of the currency, was fixed at sixteen grains as the tmit. This clumsy unit was a rough compromi.se between the dollar in which Congress intended to deal, and the shilling and pence of the people. Sixteen grains of silver formed ^^ of Alexander Hamilton's silver dollar, containing 41 G grains of silver 802.428 fine, or roughly four cents of our money, or two pence sterling. The Ordinance fixed the price of silver at jL of a dollar for every twenty-four grains, or the silver dollar at 432 grains. Postage on single letters going less than sixty miles was fixed at thirty- two grains of silver, or about 4:d., or eight cents in our money; on single letters going from sixty to one hundred miles the postage was forty-eight grains, (Ir/. , or twelve cents ; and for every additional one hundred miles sixteen grains, equal to 2^/. or 4 cents, were added. For letters to or from Europe the charge remained ninety-six grains of silver, or one shilling, a rate established in 1710, and continued until the second half of this century. Double letters paid double postage ; treble letters paid treble postage ; and letters weighing an ounce paid quadruple rates. Newspapers were carried outside the mail bags at rates determined by the Government, which took part of the proceeds. The salary of the Postmaster-General was fixed at $1,S00, of his "Clerk or Assistant " at $1,000. The Ordinance answered the demand of its time, and was heartily supported in

Massachusetts. Its defect lay in the fact that the Articles of Confederation still left each State a certain field of action in postal matters within the State. In 1777, at the request of Congress, Massachu.setts exempted Postmasters and postriders from military duty. A vear before certain Virginia gentlemen agreed to ride post once a week between Fredericksburg and Charlottesville. But on the whole the Ordinance of 17iS"i worked well enough, and was not replaced until three vears after the adoption of the Constitution. Samuel Osgood served as Washington's Postmaster-General under the Ordinance he had helped to frame, and Jonathan Hastings, the Postmaster at Boston, had the honor of serving under appointments received successively from the Province Congress, and from the Postmasters-General appointed by the Continental Congress, under the Articles of Confederation, and under the Constitution. He was born when Massachusetts was a 103-al Province; he witnessed the agitation and consternation over the Stamp Act ; he saw Warren ; and he lived long enough to hear that President Jackson had invited Postmaster-General Barry to a seat in the Cabinet. Hastings died March 8, 1831 ; but he retired from the Boston Post-Offiee in 1808, when he was succeeded by Aaron Hill. It was under these men that, owing to the establishment of independent Post-Offices in Cambridge, Charlestown, Brighton, Roxbury, Dorchester, and Brookline, the Boston Postal District lost, for some decades, its ancient extent and power.

The history of the Boston Post-Office under the Constitution may be divided into three periods, respectively separated by the Presidency of Jackson - also in other respects an era of American history - and by the year 1875, when the Postal District resumed its former extent. During the period from Washington to the inauguration of President Jackson, Boston had but tw^o Postmasters, Jonathan Hastings and Aaron Hill. Hastings was originally appointed by the Province Congress of Massachusetts, and served until 1808, when he was succeeded by Aaron Hill. Both were natives of Cambridge; both were Harvard graduates; both were identified with the Revolution ; both served an unusual number of years as Postmasters. Hill served in the army of the Revolution ; was a Selectman of Cambridge from 1705 to 1805, and in 1807, Town Clerk from 1708 to 1805, a member of the Massachusetts Legislature from 1705 to 1808, and a member of the Governor's Council in 1810-11 and 1854-25. He was appointed Postmaster of Boston on July 1, 1808; his successor was appointed March 21, 1839. Hill died November 37, 1830.

He was appointed by Postmaster-General (iranger, at a time when United-States Senators resigned to become Postmasters; for Thcodoriis Bailey retired frcjni the Senate to take the New- York post-office, and Michael Leib gave up the senatorship of the United (states for the Philadelphia post-office. As Boston has generally been the third largest Post-Office in the countr}', one may infer in what esteem the position of its Postmaster was held by public opinion. Yet until ISDG no Postmaster was appointed by the President, and until Jackson's time the Postmaster-General was not a member of the Cabinet.

Tlie Constitution was to unify and consolidate the national Government; but until Jackson's day the Post-Office legislation of the country rose very little above the level of 1775 and 1782. Samuel Osgood, the first Postmaster-General under the Constitution, served altogether under the postal laws of the preceding period, - Even his salary had been fixed by the Act of 17S2, and the present Post-Office Department ma)' be said to have its beginning under the Constitution in the Act of 2(1 Februar}', 1792. That law fixed the postage rates which controlled with slight variations until 1845, letter postage ranging from six to twentyfive cents for each sheet, according to distance. The satne law made the stealing of letters punishable with death. The Postmaster-General had a salary of $2,000, the Postmasters not exceeding $1,800; but the Act of May 8, 1794, gave the Postmasters up to $3,500, and it threatened the theft of money letters by postal employees with death. Mail robbery was likewi.se punishable with death. The so-called penny post, which began at Boston in 1639, was continued. The Act of March 2, 1799, made the stealing of money letters on the part of employees punishable with whipping, and aggravated mail robbery with death. In the same year, the expenses of the Post-Office Department, as distinct from the postal service, were charged to the Treasury, which has borne them ever since, while the postal service is intended to pay for itself. The same Act exempted postal employees from militia and jury duty. They are still exempt from militia duty; but the exemption from jury service was accidentally repealed in 1874.

In 1791) the domestic mails, both from New York and the East, were due in Boston on Wednesdays and Saturdays; the foreign mail service continued strikingly imperfect, althotigh vessels arriving in Boston could not break bulk until they had delivered their mail. For each letter so received the Postmaster paid two cents, and charged six or eight. Letters for foreign countries were despatched only when the liciine charges were fully prepaid. But there was no regular foreignmail service, although the Act of 1700 authorised the Postmaster-General to "make arrangements with the Postmasters in iiny foreign countr}- for the reciprocal receipt and delivery of packets through the Post- Offices. " This state of affairs continued until about 1850, and was not fully reduced to an orderly system until 187.S, when the Postal Union made five cents the standard rate for international letters. The Boston Post-Office had its beginning in the care of foreign letters, for Richard Fairbanks was to receive and despatch ship letters only; and yet the foreign mail was the last to be reduced to reasonable uniformity. The Post-Office Department at Washington had no " foreign desk '' until 1850, and no vSuperintendent of Foreign Mails until ISOS, Its work was almost altogether domestic, and consisted mainly in the extension of postal facilities. Osgood found but about seventy-five Post-Offices, mostly on the shore line from Portland to Savannah ; Pickering and Habersham increased the ntimber to nearly one thousand; but it was not nntil October 1, 1802, that Postmaster-General Granger established Cambridge as a separate office in the present Postal District of Boston. Charlestown was established April 1, 181(1, by Posmaster-General Meigs; Brighton, July 1, 1817.

Gideon Granger, who was Postmaster-General from 1801 to 1814, was a true Jeffersonian. At an early day he recommended that negroes be not allowed to carry the mails. In support he alluded to "political considerations," and stated frankly that it was hazardous to acquaint negroes with "natural rights," adding: "They will learn [as mail carriers] that a man's rights do not depend on his color." These provisions of 1802 were re-embodied in the Post-Office Act of 1810, and negroes could not be mail carriers until the time of President Lincoln. But the Act of 1810 abolished whipping as a punishment for stealing money letters on the part of postal employees, and substituted imprisonment up to ten years. Aggravated mail robbery was still punishable with death; and this law continued until 1872, when imprisonment for life was substituted. The lowest rate for letters carried not exceeding forty miles was raised from six to eight cents, and under Postmaster- Cieneral Meigs, who served from 1814 to 1823, the rate was, for the period from February 1, 1815, to May 1, 1816, the highest under the Constitution, namely, twelve cents for a single-sheet letter carried not exceeding forty miles, and thirty-seven and one-half cents for a like letter carried more than four hundred miles. From May 1, 181U, to

July 1, 1845, the rates were from six to twenty-five cents. ]Mci<i's defended Sunday mails as an act of mercy, because an act of necessity. His administration was not marked in Boston ; but he paid more money into the Treasury than any of his predecessors. Meigs paid $387,209, against $003,310 paid by Habersham, and $-291,57!) paid by Granger. Since then, owing to the rapid increase of Post-Offices, the service has not been profitable to the Treasury. It was in Meigs's day that Van Rensselaer, a Federalist, resigned a seat in Congress to take the Post- Office at Albany, N. Y., where the Democrats ruled.

Mr. McLean, Postmaster-General from 182)? to 1829, is one of the most illustrious men ever connected with the service. His administration is marked by the consolidated Post-Office Act of 1825, and by the establishment of about four thousand new Post-Offices. In the Boston District he established the following: Roxbury, August 25, 1823; Dorchester April 3, 1820; East Cambridge, March 17, 1828; Cambridgeport, March 18, 1828; Jamaica Plain, January 12, 1829; aad Brookline, March 3, 1829. Thus the number of Post-Offices in the Boston Postal District was increased to ten ; from 1039 to 1802 there had been but one. Postmasters were now placed imder bonds, and prohibited from engaging in lotteries. The power of the Postmaster-General over the whole service and its finances was almost absolute. Mr. Justice Story thought it excessive, and his famous commentary upon the Constitution contains a memorable warning against the political abuse almost invited by the Post-Office laws. Until Barry, the Postmaster-General was not a member of the Cabinet ; but he was a political officer. Granger was appointed and removed for political reasons ; and when Jackson became President, there began that commingling of party politics and Post-Office affairs which continues until now, although the Act of 1830 gave the auditing of all Post-Office accounts to the Treasury, and deprived the Postmaster-General of the right to appoint Postmasters whose annual salary exceeds $1,000. The Civil-Service law of 1883 has still further stemmed the tide, and no Postmaster-General has engaged in removals or appointments called political, unless he was urged, not to say forced, by the political party to which he owed his own appointment.

For the first quarter that Postmaster-General Osgood was in office, he reports a total revenue of $7,510.05, Boston, the third largest office contributing $004. 93. In the year ended Octobers, 1791, the Boston Post-Office collected $3,094.75 in a total of $42,255.14 for the whole country. In the year ended September 30, 1821, the Postmaster at

Boston, Aaron Hill, deducted $5,J(i'.i.41 from the gross receipts of his office, expending- |;2,825.(;6 for six clerks, %'M() for rent, $1)4. 30 for fuel and light, and $67.72 for incidentals, leaving him a net compensation, as the published account states, of $1,881.74. The receipts of one letter carrier are not included. He received two cents for every letter he delivered. In the year ended March 31, 1827, the net amount of postage accrued at the Boston office was $53,057.31 ; at Cambridge, $G89.50; at Charlestown, $9:57.75; at Brighton, $101.34; at Roxbury, $448. CO; and at Dorchester, $151.01. These sums remained, after all local ofifice expenses were paid, and illustrate the rapid growth of the district in wealth and activit^^ In the same year the Philadelphia office paid $77,41i;.(i4 to the Postmaster-General, and New York $n4,3SS.Sl. The Boston Post-Office under Hastings was first at 44 Cornhill, now called Washington Street ; then in State vStreet, where Brazer's building now stands; and from ISKi to 1820 it was at the corner of Congress and Water Streets. Hill retired from the Boston Post-Office in lS2i), and was succeeded by Nathaniel Greene, a true Jacksonian.

The first Postmaster at Cambridge was Ebenezer Stedman ; his successor was Joseph Stacey Read. Stedman was born May 10, 1743; he was graduated at Harvard in 1705; from 1786 to 1700 and from 1790 to 1801 he was vSelectman at Cambridge ; from 1780 to 1808 he was Town Treasurer; he died October 7, 1815. Read was born in 1754; by trade he was a saddler; he died in 1830. Both men were held in general respect. Their office dealt with the Boston Post-Office only. The first Postmaster of Charlestown, appointed in 1810, was John Kettell. The first Postmaster at Brighton, appointed in 1817, was no less a man than Noah Worcester, famous as the founder of the Massachusetts Peace Society and as the author of peace tracts that circulated almost throughout Christendom. In 1818 Harvard created him a Doctor of Divinity, and in 1844, seven years after his death, his memoirs were published. He was born November 25, 1758, in HoUis, N. H. ; was a fifer in the Continental army ; took part in the battle of Bunker Hill ; acted as a Congregational missionary in New Hampshire, and removed to Brighton when it was a village of about 050 inhabitants. He served as Postmaster until 1837, and his daughter Sally was his deputy. In 1830, when the Jackson administration was in full operation, Brighton had 972 inhabitants ; Cambridge, with its Post-Oiifices at Canibridge, Cambridgeport and East Cambridge, had 0,072 inhabitants; Charlestown had 8,783; Roxbury, 5,247; Dorchester, 4,074; Bro'okline, 1,043; Bos-

The Presidency of Jackson brought Postmaster-General Barr_\- into the Cabinet; it brought postal legislation of the first importance ; and with it came the railway that was destined to revolutionise the postal facilities of the country. It appears that the service at the beginning was to have its own "posts," or special riders at fixed intervals; in 170-1: authority was given to carry the mail on regular stage lines, but with the proviso that the cost must not exceed the revenue; the Act of 1825 enabled the Postmaster-General to send the mail in steamboats, provided the cost did not exceed three cents a letter; the railway as a post road was not recognised by law imtil 1838, when the country had nearly two thousand miles of railway. The reason why the mails did not go sooner by private conveyance is readily seen : the charges were very high. In bSoo the triweekly mail between Louisville and New Orleans was carried by land, the "Ohio and Mississippi Mail Line" of steamboats declaring that they could not carry letters for the sum of three cents each. In 1838 the law declared that the transportation of mail matter by rail must not exceed the cost in stage coaches by more than twenty-five per cent. In 1823 the country had 85,700 miles of post road, and only on 20,943 was the mail carried in stages; in 1820 the mail was carried 13,0()n,()(iU miles in all, half the distance in mail coaches, the remainder in sulkies or on horseback; in 1832 the transportation of the mails had reached 23,625,021 miles, 16,222,743 being by coach, against 6,902,977 by sulky or on horsback, and but 400,301 by steamboat. But see the Blue Book of 1833, p. *273.

It appears, then, that rmder Jackson and his two Postmasters-General, Barry and Kendall, the transportation of mail by private conveyance, as distinct from Government transjjortation, came into general use; that, with few exceptions, steamboats in domestic waters did not largely engage in the carrying of the public mail ; and that railroads soon took the larger part of the business. Boston was supplied in the main by mail coaches, some of them quite grand, until the railroads fairly monopolised the business of carrying the mail. And it is right to affirm that, as compared with other parts of the country, the railways centering in Boston have charged moderate prices for carrying the mail. The most extravagant prices have been charged for certain Southern mails, for mails on the Mississippi river, and for the overland mail to California before the building of the Pacific railways.

The Boston Postal District has been profitable to the Department from the adoption of the Constitution, and thoujjh not the third larg'est city in the country, Boston generally pays the third largest profit - a distinction it has had with scarce an exception since 1789. Before Jackson the stage was the great mail carrier for Boston; since then the railway has had almost a monopoly of carrying Boston mails, the Boston mails carried in domestic steamboats being insignificant. But for some years a heavy foreign mail was carried to and from Boston in foreign steamships.

The Postmasters at Boston from the era of Jackson to the establishment of the present Postal District were seven, two of whom served two terms each. Nathaniel Greene, appointed on March 21, 1829-. was the last of the Boston Postmasters to receive his commission from the Postma.ster-General. The Post-Office Act of 1836, framed by Amos Kendall, placed the appointment of all Postmasters who.se income exceeds i|l,000 a year in the hands of the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate. The same law limited the term of these appointments to four years, and gave the President the absolute power of removal. The result has been that Postmasters are in some sense political officers, although their duties are chiefly ministerial and entirely non-political. Greene was born May 20, 1797, at Boscawen, N. H., and died in Boston, November 29, 1877. He founded in 1821 the American Statesman, a Boston newspaper which was merged, some ten years later, in the Boston Post. Until some few years ago the weekly edition of the Post was called the American Statesman. As an avocation Greene gave some attention to literature, translating from the Italian, French and German. On April 28, 1841, immediately after the accession of President Tyler, George W. Gordon was appointed Postmaster in Greene's place; but Greene was reappointed on vSeptember 20, 1843, and served until 1849. When the Taylor-Fillmore administration came in, William Hayden was appointed Postmaster, on May 14, 1849, but George W. Gordon was reappointed on September 28, 1850, and served until 1853. Gordon had been a member of the Boston Cominon Council in its palmy days from 1835 to 1839. Hayden sat in the same body from 1842 to 1845; in 1847, 1848, and 1852 he was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. From 1824 to 1841 he had been Auditor of the City of Boston. He was born November 8, 1795, at Richmond, Va., and died October U, 1880, at Maiden, Mass. He was graduated at the Boston Latin School in 1807.

Like so many Postmasters in Boston and elsewhere, Hayden was a newspaper editor, being connected with the famous Boston Atlas, the Whig' organ. Another newspaper editor who became Postmaster at Boston was Edwin C. Bailey, appointed on September 21, 1853, who served during the Presidency of Pierce. Edward Curtis Bailey was born June 10, 181(), in New York City; he entered the Boston Post- Office under his uncle. Postmaster Greene. In 1847 and 1848 he was a member of the Boston Common Council; in 1848, still under Greene, he took chai-ge of the General Delivery. From 1849 to 1853, under Postmasters' Hayden and Gordon, he served as Chief Clerk. While Postmaster, from 1853 to 1857, he became owner of the Boston Herald, selling out in 18(i!). After a pause he edited the Boston Globe in 1878- 79, and then the Patriot at Concord, N. H. He was killed in a railroad horror at Quincy, August 21, 1890.

This connection between the newspapers and the Post-Office was originally due to the franking privilege enjoyed by all postmasters. Until 1845 nearly the entire mail for postmasters was carried free, and for many years half the postage collected from newspapers went to the postmasters. The Act of 1825 gave the postmasters but one daily paper postage free, or a half-dozen weeklies; but the same Act enabled newspaper publishers to exchange their papers postage free. The Act of 1845 restricted the privileges of the larger Postmasters, and in 18G3 all postmasters' private mail was placed on the same footing as other citizens'. Since then the postmasters have not had any advantage over private publishers ; bvit the country postmaster and the country weekly appear to be naturally connected. Bailey was the last to combine the Boston Post-Office with newspaper publishing; his immediate successors were given to literature. Nahum Capen, who served under Buchanan, was appointed on June 4, 1857, and John Gorham Palfrey, who served under Lincoln and Johnson, was appointed on March 29, 18G1, and took charge of the office April 11, 1861.

Capen was a publisher, who drifted into writing; Palfrey is the illustrious historian of New England. Capen was born on April 1, 1804, at Canton, Mass. ; became a member of Mai-sh, Capen & Lyon, Boston publishers; edited the Massachusetts State Record from 1847 to 1851; wrote quasi-philosophical books upon the United States and the History of Democracy, besides essays upon international copyright and reminiscences of Spurzheim and Combe; he died on January 8, 188fi, in Dorchester. William B. Smith was Capen's Assistant-Postmaster.

The Postal Sriwice

Palfrey is one of the imperisliable names. He was born in Boston on Ma}' 2, I TOG, and died at Cambridge on April 26, 1881. He is the only Boston Postmaster who ever held a seat in Congress, having been elected in 1840 as a Whig. Previously he had been a member of the Massachusetts Legislature, professor of sacred literature and an overseer at Harvard College, editor of the North American Review in its grand days, and Secretary of the Commonwealth from 1844 to 1847. He had published Lectures on the Jewish Scriptures and Antiquities, Evidences of Christianity, the elements of a rabbinical grammar, and many discourses upon Harvard College history and politics; but it is as the historian of New England that his name is honored throughout the world of letters. On April i:], 1807, William L. Burt was appointed Postmaster at Boston in the place of Palfre}' ; then the present Postal District came into being: the age of newspapers and literature in the Boston Post-Oifice was succeeded by an age of affairs and expansion.