An article examining the life of Nathan Kelsey Hall, who served as postmaster general from 1850-1852, was recently added to the postal history section on usps.com.
It was written by USPS Historian Stephen Kochersperger and Senior Research Analyst Junemarie Brandt.
Hall was born in 1810 in the Finger Lakes region of New York. He eschewed the family leathermaking business for the study of law.
In 1826, he was hired as a clerk by a young Buffalo attorney named Millard Fillmore. Hall married Emily Paine in 1832, was admitted to the bar in 1833 and became a partner in Fillmore’s law practice. The two eventually left their legal partnership for public service.
Fast-forward 24 years and Fillmore, who assumed the U.S. presidency after the death of Zachary Taylor, tapped Hall to be postmaster general.
The United States had acquired more than a million square miles of land in 1848 following the Mexican-American War. This, along with the Gold Rush, greatly complicated the job of postmaster general.
One of Hall’s early moves was to lower the price of domestic postage. “It is believed [the diminution of department revenues] has been slight in comparison with the public benefits which have followed,” he said.
However, he pushed for much higher rates to the Pacific Coast — close to the actual cost before the transcontinental railroad was built — but Congress granted only a fraction of his request.
His integrity “was almost of a romantic type,” the article quotes Hall biographer James O. Putnam as saying. He railed against the abuse of franking privileges, called for tougher penalties for equipment theft, and “never knew any difference between friends and foes” in awarding contracts.
Fillmore was not chosen to run again on the Whig Party ticket and offered Hall the position of U.S. judge for the Western District of New York. Hall accepted the judgeship, which he held until his death on March 2, 1874.
Six days later, Fillmore died. They are buried next to each other in Buffalo’s Forest Lawn Cemetery.
In addition to Hall, biographies of former postmasters general Francis Grainger, Charles Wickliffe, Cave Johnson and Jacob Collamer have been added to usps.com recently.
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