1803 Assistant Postmaster General Abraham (1 results)

An original document measuring approximately 3 3/8 x 8 inches. Second to last picture for reference only. Thanks for looking.Moses Seymour (1774 - 1826), son of Revolutionary War veteran Major Moses Seymour, was born at Litchfield, CT to Molly Marsh Seymour and Major Moses Seymour. He was the fourth of five sons. He married Mabel Strong in Addison, VT., on May 29, 1782 and they had nine children, all of whom attended the Litchfield Female Academy. He was a merchant in Litchfield, local postmaster for 25 years and sheriff for six years. Abraham Bradley, Jr. (February 22, 1767 ?? May 7, 1838) was an American lawyer, judge, and cartographer who was assistant postmaster general for 30 years during the earliest history of the United States Post Office Department. Litchfield During the Revolutionary War - LITCHFIELD's INLAND LOCATION on major trade routes gave the town a unique role during the American Revolution. Because Litchfield was considered a ??safe town,? secure from British attack, patriot leaders asked the townspeople to serve as jailers for loyalist prisoners. The prisoners were in Litchfield??s jail and in the home of Major Moses Seymour. Litchfield??s best known prisoners were William Franklin, the royal Governor of New Jersey and son of Benjamin Franklin, and the mayor of New York City. Located at a crossroads, Litchfield was a central point on several routes between important Connecticut towns and the strategic military posts in the Hudson River Valley. As a result, patriots used the town as a critical supply depot for military stores and munitions. Source: Litchfield Historical SocietyAbraham Bradley Jr. was responsible for moving the federal government's post office from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to the new capital at Washington, D.C., hosting the national post office in his own home for a period. The continuity brought by Bradley's long employment during the tenure of five different United States postmasters general helped establish the budding postal service as a reliable provider Bradley drew detailed and innovative postal route maps which contributed significantly to the office's efficiency. Bradley's original work of 1796 was one of the first comprehensive maps of the United States as it existed, which "represented the first clear cartographic break in European-dominated map making and introduced a new, more distinctly American style of cartography to the United States."ContentsBorn in Litchfield, Connecticut, Abraham Bradley was the fourth consecutive scion of the colonial family established by early Guilford, Connecticut, pioneer Stephen Bradley to bear the surname Abraham. Abraham Bradley's father Abraham was himself a Yale College graduate who listed his various employments: ". a surveyor of land, master of a vessel, selectman, town treasurer, representative in the state legislature, justice of the peace, a zealous Whig, captain in the Revolutionary War, judge of the court, town clerk, and something of a scribbler in prose and verse." The son Abraham Bradley showed promise as a student and graduated from the celebrated law school run by Litchfield attorney Tapping Reeve.Tapping Reeve's Law SchoolBradley moved to the Wyoming Valley of frontier Pennsylvania in 1788 and established himself in private law practice. While briefly serving as a county judge in Wilkes-Barre, he made the acquaintance of local judge Timothy Pickering. Bradley accompanied him as a personal clerk when Pickering was appointed postmaster general by President George Washington and moved to Philadelphia in 1791.[5] Bradley was described by a contemporary as "an unassuming man, modest and retiring almost to diffidence, yet a lawyer of competent learning, with a clear and discriminating mind, and an industry that knew no relaxation when there was a duty to perform ."As one of his many responsibilities as clerk to the postmaster general, Bradley began to compile information for a complete postal service map, including routes, stations, and distances between each. Handicapped by his lack of training in the fields of topography and cartography, Bradley utilized cartographic knowledge imparted in earlier maps by Robert Erskine and Thomas Hutchins.[7] When Postmaster General Pickering was succeeded by Joseph Habersham in 1795, Bradley's postal route maps and voluminous knowledge of the department made him an irreplaceable figure.In September 1796 Bradley published the first combined map of the post office stations, routes, and distances between. The map included a remarkable and innovative table that indicated times and days of the week to expect mail at various important postal coach stops along the primary eastern route. By this chart it could be determined that a letter posted in northernmost station at Brewer, Maine could be expected to reach St. Marys, Georgia in six weeks plus four days, 46 days of travel.[8] Bradley spent much of his career improving, expanding, and refining U.S. postal maps during the rapid westward expansion of America in the early 19th century. Appointed assistant postmaster general by Habersham in 1799, he would serve in the office until 1828.In 1800, the seat of U.S. government was transferred from urban Philadelphia to the newly surveyed, mostly rural District of Columbia. Under Habersham, Bradley was assigned the task of moving the General Post Office Department files and furniture to a location in the nation's new capital. Bradley acquired a three-story house at the northeast corner of 9th and E streets, installed his family in the top floor, Habersham's and his own offices on the second story, and the clerks' offices on the ground level.??We have not been able to open the office and to accommodate business until to-day. I left Philadelphia Wednesday the 27th of May and arrived here on the evening of the 29th. The President [Adams] left Philadelphia the 26th and arrived at Georgetown the first of June. The situation of the city is extremely pleasant and it will proba.