More than 300 African American postmasters appointed in the 19th century

Part 1: A symbolic office for an emancipated race

I first became acquainted with this subject while conducting research for my first book, George Henry White: An Even Chance in the Race of Life (LSU Press, 2001). My research disclosed that former Congressman White (1897-1901), a Tarboro resident who served North Carolina’s Second District, was instrumental in appointing more than three dozen black residents—both male and female—as postmasters across the sprawling “Black Second” district during his two terms in office. That was certainly news to me, so I pursued the topic in later articles for the North Carolina Historical Review and the N. C. Postal Historian, and again in my most recent book, Forgotten Legacy: William McKinley, George Henry White, and the Struggle for Black Equality (LSU Press, 2020).

As a biographer of George White, I was of course most interested in his role in selecting these black postmaster, but gradually gradually expanded my focus to include William McKinley’s necessary involvement—as presidents were required to submit formal nominations for postmasterships to the U.S. Senate. In addition to the dozens proposed by White, the nation’s only African American congressman, I learned that McKinley had appointed dozens more black postmasters across the country during his first term in office—a total of 104, mostly in the South, understandable, given that most African Americans still lived there at the time—but also including a handful of appointees in the Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory, and states such as Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. And while most of these appointees served small, rural communities in heavily-black Southern counties, a number of McKinley appointees were assigned to larger urban post offices in Georgia and both Carolinas, the three Southern states where Republicans still held the most influence.

Some of McKinley’s appointees, I found, were actually recycled from the administration of Republican Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893), after being replaced by Democrat Grover Cleveland in his second term. Harrison, in fact, had appointed about 100 black postmasters during his term, and together, the two Republican presidents named about two-thirds of the 300-plus total appointees during the 19th century. If it was just a tiny percentage of the total number of postmaster positions available in the United States—perhaps 80,000 at its peak—it was symbolically remarkable in the first decade after the Civil War that newly-freed slaves could even be considered for the job, when so few were able to read and write, and

According to U.S. Postal Service records, the nation’s first black postmasters were appointed in early 1867—James W. Mason of Sunny Side, Arkansas, and William Thomas Montgomery, of Hurricane, Mississippi—during the administration of President Andrew Johnson. Both men were literate—Mason, son of a plantation owner, had attended Oberlin College, and later became a state legislator; Montgomery and his siblings were privately educated by their father, a favored slave who ran the general store for the brother of future Confederate President Jefferson Davis. But neither man was yet able to vote, pending later revisions to their state constitutions mandated by the Congressional Reconstruction Acts. (The 13th amendment to the U.S. Constitution had already outlawed slavery, but the 14th and 15th amendments had not yet been approved; the 15th, which guaranteed the right to vote to freedmen, was approved in 1870.)

James W. Mason (1841-1875), first known black U.S. postmaster,
in Sunny Side, Arkansas, 1867. Public domain

Only one more black postmaster took office before Johnson left the White House in March 1869—Robert Meacham of Monticello, Florida, in February—according to records compiled later by USPS, although a fourth early postmaster—Henry Smith of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, appointed in July 1866—is believed by many to have been black. But Smith’s race has not been verified; neither the Post Office Department nor the rest of the federal government kept systematic track of the race of appointees at the time, although race was often noted in newspaper accounts and sometimes notated in margins of the Department’s individual appointment registers for each post office.

Robert Meacham, postmaster of Monticello, Florida, 1869-1871. Public domain

But after Ulysses S. Grant took office in March 1869, what is certain is that the number of verifiably black postmasters jumped significantly—nearly 60 black appointees in eight years, including the nation’s first three black female postmasters: Anna Dumas of Covington, Louisiana, and Mary Middleton of Midway, South Carolina, in 1872, and Eliza H. Davis of Summerville, South Carolina, in 1873. Grant also named the first two black postmasters to serve state capitals (Charles M. Wilder in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1869, and William G. Stewart in Tallahassee, Florida, 1873) and larger cities (Dr. Benjamin A. Boseman in Charleston and Charles W. Ringgold in New Orleans, both in 1873). And to a large degree, the presence of the nation’s first black congressmen on the national stage facilitated this shift.

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Beginning with the election of black Republican Joseph Rainey of South Carolina to the U.S. House in 1870, a steady stream of black congressmen from Southern states—20 were elected and seated in the House between 1870 and 1898, serving part or all of nearly 40 terms—and a string of friendly Republican Presidents perpetuated their trend of appointing new or recycled black postmasters. South Carolina elected the largest number of black congressmen from any state—eight—and its Republican party leaders accordingly recommended appointments for more than 80 black postmasters over the same period.

By 1900, other Southern states had received smaller numbers of black postmasters—including Alabama (14), Arkansas (7), Florida (10), Georgia (8), Louisiana (13), Mississippi (17), Texas (2), and Virginia (8). Outside the South, states like Indiana, with one black postmaster), Kansas (3), Kentucky (1), Maryland (2), Ohio (3), and Pennsylvania (2), were also included, along with Oklahoma Territory (10) and the Indian Territory (7).

Many of them, who were named to complete unexpired four-year terms of previous postmasters, served a year or less. Others served several terms, such as Rev. Joshua E. Wilson (1844-1915) of Florence, South Carolina, who was appointed by five separate presidents between 1876 and 1899, and ultimately served a total of 22 years as local postmaster. A handful went on to be reappointed indefinitely—such as John T. Jackson of Alanthus, Virginia, who served an astounding 48 years before retiring in 1940, and Berry O’Kelly, whose postmastership in Method, North Carolina, lasted 40 years, until his death.

Charcoal Drawing of John T. Jackson, postmaster of Alanthus, Virginia, from 1891 to 1940.
Courtesy of National Postal Museum, Washington, D.C.

Berry O’ Kelly (1861-1831), postmaster of Method, N.C., from 1890 to 1931.
Photo courtesy of N.C. Department of Cultural Resources

During the same period, North Carolina secured the single largest number of black postmasters—at least 93 between 1869 and the end of the 19th century, with more than half of those (51) appointed during the single term of William McKinley alone. Most of McKinley’s postmasters were named at the request of the nation’s only black congressman, George H. White, for small rural post offices in his “Black Second” district. I first wrote extensively about White’s leadership in this regard in my 2001 biography of the congressman, and revisited the subject in my 2020 book, Forgotten Legacy, which focused on the details of President McKinley’s extraordinary efforts to elevate deserving African Americans to federal office.

But it was not always easy. Along the way, McKinley endured embarrassing political setbacks, especially when the Senate refused to approve two high-profile nominees requiring confirmation in early 1898—from Arkansas (Ferd Havis of Pine Bluff) and North Carolina (Colin Anthony of Scotland Neck), who were both withdrawn in early 1898 after well-publicized hearings ended in negative votes. Havis, a wealthy, controversial Republican businessman in Pine Bluff, was already a polarizing figure in Arkansas politics, while Anthony, a successful tavern owner in largely-white Scotland Neck, became the target of a scandalous campaign for his alleged personal immorality.

Millionaire businessman Ferd Havis (1846-1917), unsuccessful nominee as postmaster of
Pine Bluff, Arkansas, in 1898. Photo courtesy of Arkansas State Archives

McKinley’s well-publicized wish to appoint Judson W. Lyons, a prominent black attorney, as postmaster of Augusta, Georgia, had been vehemently opposed in 1897 by stubborn Georgia Democrats, and McKinley reluctantly agreed to drop the proposal. But he later appointed Lyons as the much more influential Register of the U. S. Treasury Department, a post he held from 1898 until 1906.

Judson W. Lyons (1860-1924), unsuccessfully proposed as postmaster of Augusta, Ga., in 1897.
Photo courtesy of New York Public Library Digital Image Collection

Those cases were exceptions; relatively few nominees provoked such strong public opposition, either in the Senate or in their local communities. But because substantial bonds were required for postmasters, some of those nominated were forced to withdraw after their failure to qualify for bonds. Community opposition also forced a handful of black postmasters to resign before completing their terms, and by 1900, three black North Carolina postmasters (Clinton W. Battle of Battleboro, James M. Pittman of Tillery, and Israel D. Hargett of Rocky Mount) had been removed, tried for alleged misuse of postal funds, and imprisoned.

The most alarming incidents, however, involved physical violence against two black postmasters appointed to serve predominantly-white communities. Isaiah Loftin of Hogansville, shot in late 1897, by an unknown assailant, survived and returned to work. But Frazier Baker, postmaster of Lake City, South Carolina, was less fortunate; after several warnings, he and an infant daughter were shot and burned to death in early 1898 by a masked mob who destroyed the rented post office where his family also lived. Thirteen defendants were later charged with conspiracy—the only federal charge then available for the dastardly crime; the rare but well-publicized public trial ended in a hung jury and mistrial.

Lake City, SC, postmaster Frazier Baker, murdered in 1898.

Shortly after Baker’s murder, Rep. George White (R-N.C.) sponsored a bill that would have provided a small death payment to Baker’s widow and five surviving children. But his bill, referred to the House Judiciary Committee, was soon lost in the frenzy over the Spanish-American War, which erupted weeks later. Attempts by civil rights activist Ida B. Wells-Barnett of Chicago to have White withdraw his bill in favor of a similar bill—with a larger payout—proposed by the Illinois congressional delegation were unsuccessful, and in the end, the postmaster’s widow received no federal funds, only private charitable contributions.

Most of McKinley’s nominees enjoyed more peaceful tenures as postmasters, including the 14 black women he nominated for the post between 1897 and 1900. Like their male counterparts, his female nominees were literate and generally well-respected figures in their communities, although they lacked true political influence, since they could not yet vote. McKinley, however, personally favored women’s suffrage—having once entertained a female presidential candidate, Victoria Woodhull, at his Ohio home in 1872—and saw fit to propose more female postmasters than any president before him.

Next time: African American women gain a strong foothold as postmasters in the late 1890s