21 Have Served City Since Washington Named Augustine Davis
Federalist, Whig and Carpetbagger;
G.O.P. and Democrat All Paid by Office
By Frank Hopkins
In the last century and a half, Richmond has grown from a straggling village of 1,800 inhabitants to a modern provincial capital of more than 180,000. During this period the life of the city has developed in many ways, but in none more strikingly than in the growth of its postal service.
Richmond was hardly more than a village when President Washington appointed its first postmaster in 1790. It had been chosen the capital of Virginia 10 years before, in 1780, but only by the margin of one vote over Hanovertown, on the Pamunkey; it enjoyed a thriving trade as loading point for ships, and it was centrally located.
At the time of its incorporation in 1782, however, the little capital had less than 2,000 people and only about 300 houses. Only the far-sighted realized its destiny as the commercial and manufacturing metropolis of the State.
Transportation was by ship or by stage coach, and communication by mail was tedious and uncertain. The postmastership, though carrying some prestige, was hardly vital in the life of the city.
In contrast to those arcadian days, the Post Office now is at the very heart of the throbbing pulse of daily business. Trains, motor trucks and airplanes pour their daily cargoes into the city, and the postal service is the distributing agency which links Richmond with the huge economic network of the nation.
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In the days since the Post Office developed from a one-room affair to the impressive building on Main Street, which in turn is already inadequate in capacity and about to be added to, 21 Richmonders have served the city in the office of postmaster.
Richmond's first postmaster was Augustine Davis, who served under the Federalist Presidents, Washington and Adams. His term of office was from February 16, 1790, to July 1, 1802.
Augustine Davis was a printer and newspaper publisher, and started Richmond's second newspaper, the Virginia Independent Chronicle, in 1786. The Chronicle, which sold for 15 shillings per annum, was a competitor of the Virginia Gazette & Weekly Advertiser, which had been brought to Richmond from Williamsburg in 1780.
Later on, however, Augustine Davis became the publisher of the latter paper, renamed the Virginia Gazette & Richmond Advertizer. His place of business, the Rev. Asbury Christian states in his "Richmond: Past and Present," was near the old James River Bridge.
Richmond's second postmaster was Marks Underhill, appointed by President Jefferson on July 1, 1802. He served for six years, being replaced on June 20, 1808, by one of Richmond's most prominent early residents, Dr. William Foushee, who kept the post 16 years.
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Dr. Foushee was Richmond's first Mayor, and he might also have been called her first citizen. Elected to the mayoralty in 1782, he was a leader in civic, commercial, political, and social affairs for a period of approximately half a century. He lived on Main Street, near the present Post Office Building.
Despite a busy professional career, Dr. Foushee found time to serve as a trustee of Richmond Academy, a director of the old Bank of Richmond from its establishment in 1793, and as president of the James River Navigation Company.
The last named post he held for 33 years, succeeding George Washington in 1785 after the latter had organized the company.
Dr. Foushee also headed various civic and patriotic societies, including such groups as the Society of the Friends of the Revolution in 1813. As a political leader and a man of wit and social presence, it was also his function to preside over large political dinners whenever Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe or other prominent leaders of the Republican (Democratic) party came to Richmond.
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Succeeding Dr. Foushee as Richmond postmaster was another outstanding citizen, James P. Preston, who served a term as Governor of Virginia. Ex-Governor Preston held the postmastership for 13 years, from September 11, 1824, to February 20, 1937.
Preston's original Appointment came from President Monroe, and later, in 1831, he served on the committee that made arrangements to honor Monroe in Richmond exercises after the news of the President's death reached the city from New York. Governor Preston was also promient in early plans for railroads in Virginia.
Richmond's fifth postmaster, William H. Roane, appointed February 20, 1837, by President Andrew Jackson, served only 19 days in the office, for on March 9, he resigned the position to become United States senator, succeeding Judge R. E. Parker.
Clairborne W. Gooch then became postmaster, serving the four years of President Van Buren's administration. In Gooch's time Richmond was becoming quite a prosperous little city, despite the setbacks of the panic of 1837. Where the population had been 5,735 under Postmaster Davis in 1800 and 9,735 under Postmaster Foushee in 1810, there were 20,135 people in Richmond by the census of 1840.
Postmaster Gooch was succeeded on March 10, 1841, by General Bernard Peyton, a prominent Whig and an appointee of the Whig President, William Henry Harrison.
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Just as Dr. Foushee presided over Republican dinners in the Jeffersonian era, so Peyton appears to have taken a leading part in Richmond's Whig affairs. He was vice-president of a dinner at the old Eagle Hotel in 1836 to John Tyler and B. W. Leigh, United States senators, and in 1840 took a leading part in a dinner at the Washington Hotel to Henry Clay.
Later he helped entertain another Whig, President Millard Fillmore, on the occasion of the latter's visit to Richmond in 1851. General Peyton was on the committees for the funeral arrangements of both Thomas Jefferson, in 1826, and Henry Clay, in 1852.
Serving as postmaster almost the exact duration of the Whig admistration of Harrison and Tyler, Peyton was replaced on March 15, 1845, by Thomas B. Bigger, an appointee of President James Knox Polk.
Postmaster Bigger, a colonel in the Richmond Blues, served for 20 years in the Richmond Post office. It was the Union victory in the War Between the States that finally brought his term to a close after he had hung a record for duration of service that still remains unchallenged.
Like General Peyton before him, Colonel Bigger was prominent in military parades and funeral processions. He was chief marshal in 1845 in the funeral procession for Andrew Jackson and in 1858 served on the committee in charge of bringing the remains of President Monroe to Hollywood Cemetery from their original resting place in New York.
Colonel Bigger died on May 5, 1880. It was noted at the time that he had been a member of the Richmond Blues since 1820.
The first postmaster under the "carpetbagger" Government which came in in 1865 was Alexander Black. After four years he was succeeded on March 19, 1869, by Miss Elizabeth L. Van Lew.
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This Miss Van Lew, Richmond's one and only woman postmaster in 144 years, was one of the most picturesque and distinctive characters in the entire history of the City.
Daughter of a prosperous Richmond business man and a Northerner by birth, she lived in an imposing mansion on Church Hill, occupying the entire square between Grace and Franklin Streets which is now the site of Bellevue School.
In this mansion, a high-pillared edifice secluded in a grove of tall trees and shut in from the outside world by a high garden wall, Miss Van Lew lived during the entire period of the War Between the States.
From this base of operations, according to accounts, she smuggled military information through the Confederate lines to Union commanders, and here also she is believed to have hidden for some time a group of Union Prisoners who had escaped form Libby prison.
When she was made postmaster in 1869 by President Grant, it was presumably a reward for services rendered to the Union cause. She held the post during his entire eight years in office, despite the fact that she was bitterly hated by Richmond people during her incumbency.
(To Be Continued Next Sunday)
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