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George Washington Petitioned by First Female Postmaster & Printer of the Declaration of Independence in One of our Nation's First Women's Rights Cases - An Amazing Archive!
George Washington Petitioned by First Female Postmaster & Printer of the Declaration of Independence in One of our Nation's First Women's Rights Cases - An Amazing Archive!
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Description:

Goddard Mary

George Washington Petitioned by First Female Postmaster & Printer of the Declaration of Independence in One of our Nation's First Women's Rights Cases - An Amazing Archive!

 

“She therefore most humbly hopes from your Excellency’s Philanthropy and wonted humanity, You will take her Situation into consideration; And...will be graciously pleased to order that She may be restored to her former office.”

 

Washington refused to get involved, and the first female postmaster never regained her job or received compensation for running the post office during the war at a personal financial loss.

 

MARY KATHERINE GODDARD, GEORGE WASHINGTON. Archive of three documents related to the dismissal of Mary Katherine Goddard as Baltimore Postmaster.  Total of 9 pp., 8.25" x 13.5" to 9.75" x 15.5"  Expected folds and some foxing and tears at folds. Tape repairs obscure some text.

 

Excerpts

“Extract of a Letter from Baltimore to a Gentn in Philada dated Novr 13, 1789.”

“The change made in the Post office department of this place, has excited the surprise & Indignation of the whole Community. This Office was kept by a Lady upwards of 14 years, whose conduct, during that period, gave uncommon Satisfaction; and all the Postmasters General have been heard to declare, that eh regularity of her Accounts & payments were equaled by few, & exceeded by one, upon the Continent. The Subject of her removal being mentioned, one of these Gentn observed, that he regretted it much, on her own account, as well as that of the pubic, who could not possibly be benefitted by a change.”

“although there are many worthy Officers and Citizens of State, to whom the emoluments, trifling as they are, might prove a seasonable relief, yet their sense of honor & delicacy has been such, as to disdain every idea of that kind, upon any other terms than those of her own free & voluntary resignation. These Gentn of course have declined the attempt, and it was reserved for Colonel John White, late Commissary of Accounts, & scarcely known in Baltimore, insidiously to step in & take this Lady’s living from her, an Act which no Gentleman in this State, be his necessities ever so pressing, would be mean enough to stoop to for relief.”

“When the scheme of getting this office was known here, all the Merchants & respectable Inhabitants joined in an address to be presented to the Postmaster Genl & his assistant, that this Lady should not be disturbed in her office. On Whites discovering that the people were unanimously against him, he posted away to meet Mr Burrell, the Assistant, & informed him thereof. Upon this emergency they concluded to represent the affair as irrecoverably lost; for that Mr White had actually received his Commission, which he would not part with; and by this finesse, it was expected the people of Baltimore would be reconciled to their fate as a thing irretrievable.”

“The most disagreeable part of the narrative is, that notwithstg the number of years she has been indefatigably employed, a variety of heavy losses has swallowed up the fruits of her Industry, which renders her totally incapable of sustaining this additional one. Mr White, her own Countryman, has for a long while past often visited her, as an acquaintance, to whom her situation was well known, and her House was the first he came to on his return lately from N. York, where he engaged her office. Little could she suppose that he was employed in supplanting her in a Secret underhand manner, and at the same time visiting her under the garb of friendship; but so it was, be the consequences what they may, either now or hereafter.”

“This is the first instance known of a military Gentns seizing and making prize of al the worldly dependence of a female Subject & ally. Plunder thus acquired, should make an Algerine pirate blush for meanly tarnishing the honorable Profession of Arms, with Spoils taken even from an Enemy in Pettycoats.”

 

Petition of 235 Baltimore Citizens and Businesses to Samuel Osgood, November 19, 1789, Baltimore, Maryland:

“The late change in the Department of Deputy Post Master in this Town, by the removal of Miss M. K. Goddard & appointment of Mr John White in her place, being a circumstance that gives us much concern, will we trust excuse the freedom we take by troubling you on the present occasion. Our knowledge of the propriety & rectitude of that Lady’s conduct for many years past, while acting in that department, added to a love of Justice and a duty we owe a worthy fellow-Citizen, induces us to interfere in her behalf, nor should we have delayed our application to this late period, had we not supposed that the laudable example of our illustrious President would have been followed, by continuing the deserving in such offices as they held previous to the adoption of the new Constitution.”

Among the signers were prominent merchants John McKim and William Buchanan; Baltimore town commissioners Michael Diffendaffer and George Franciscus; and Dr. Edward Johnson, President of the Medical Society of Baltimore.

 

Petition of Mary Katherine Goddard to George Washington, December 23, 1789, Baltimore, Maryland:

“That she hath kept the Post-Office at Baltimore for upwards of 14 years; but with what degree of satisfaction to all those concerned, she begs leave to refer to the number & respectability of the persons who have publickly addressed the Postmaster Genl & his assistant, on the subject of her late removal from office”

“And as it had been universally understood that no person would be removed from Office, under the present Government, unless manifest misconduct appeared, and as no such charge could possibly be made against her, with the least colour of Justice, She was happy in the Idea of being secured both in her Office, and the protection of all those who wished Prosperity to the Institution & the new Government in general.”

“It must therefore become a matter of serious importance & of peculiar distress to her, if Government can find no means of rewarding this Gentleman’s Services, but at the expence of all that she had to rely on, for her future & subsistence.”

“That it has been alledged as a Plea* for her removal, that the Deputy Post-master of Baltimore will hereafter be obliged to ride & regulate the offices to the Southward, but that she conceived, with great deference to the Postmaster General, is wholly impracticable, & morally impossible; because the business of the Baltimore Office will require his constant attendance and he alone could give satisfaction to the people”

The asterisk added to the previous paragraph references a note in a different hand at the bottom of the page, which reads “* - this plea is now known to be absolutely false. It must be a wretched System, indeed, which stands in need of so dispicable an Auxiliary, as a palpable lie, invented by Men high in office, passing themselves for Gentlemen of Property & Independence.”

“She therefore most humbly hopes from your Excellency’s Philanthropy and wonted humanity, You will take her Situation into consideration; And as the grievance complained of, has happened whilst the Post-Office Departmt was put under your auspicious protection, by a resolve of Congress, that your Excellency will be graciously pleased to order that She may be restored to her former office.”

[Attachment: “A Schedule of the Monies received in Quarterly Payments, at the Baltimore Post-office, from January 1776 to April 1781, inclusive, agreeable to the Baltimore Scale of depreciation”

After listing amounts received for one quarter’s postage over those dates, Goddard included the following paragraph: “By a Resolve of Congress hard Cash was received from this date, prior to which the receipts at the Baltimore office were not adequate to defray the expences of the Rent thereof; notwithstanding which, she persevered with unremitting attention, in hopes of being compensated in better times.”

 

Historical Background

In 1789, Postmaster General Samuel Osgood (1747-1813) removed Baltimore postmaster Mary Katherine Goddard—the first female postmaster in the colonies—from her position and appointed a political ally to replace her, despite objections from the Baltimore community. Osgood argued that the position required “more traveling…than a woman could undertake.”

 

On January 6, 1790, Washington replied to Goddard’s petition: “In reply to your memorial of the 23rd of December, which has been recieved, I can only observe, that I have uniformly avoided interfering with any appointments which do not require my official agency; and the Resolutions and Ordinances establishing the Post Office under the former Congress, and which have been recognized by the present Government, giving power to the Postmaster General to appoint his own Deputies, and making him accountable for their conduct, is an insuperable objection to my taking any part in this matter. I have directed your memorial to be laid before the Post-master General who will take such measures thereon as his judgment may direct.”

 

On January 7, 1790, Postmaster General Osgood replied to the petition from the citizens of Baltimore. He wrote, “the Postmaster General is by the Ordinance of Congress made accountable for the Conduct of his Deputies. The Responsibility is a Matter of very serious Consequence to him. In all such Cases, there seems to be a peculiar Propriety in permitting the Officer to exercise his own Judgement freely. From mature Consideration, I am fully convinced that I shall be more benefitted from the Services of Mr White than I could be from those of Mrs Goddard.”

 

In the spring of 1790, Goddard unsuccessfully pressed her claim for reinstatement and for payment of a claim against the United States in both the Senate and House of Representatives in New York. White served as postmaster only until August 1790, when he was replaced by Baltimore merchant and Revolutionary War veteran Alexander Furnival, who was Baltimore’s postmaster until 1800.

 

Mary Katherine Goddard (1738-1816) was born in Connecticut to Dr. Giles Goddard and Sarah Updike Goddard. Her father was the postmaster of New London, Connecticut. Together with her mother and brother, she published the first newspaper in Providence, Rhode Island, the Providence Gazette. She moved with her mother to Philadelphia in 1768, and after her mother’s death in 1770, she moved to Baltimore. In 1774, she took control of her brother’s newspaper, the Maryland Journal, and in May 1775, put “Published by M. K. Goddard” on the masthead, making her the first woman identified as a publisher of a newspaper. She published the newspaper through the Revolutionary War until a 1784 quarrel with her brother led her to give it up. From 1775 to 1789, she also served as the postmaster at Baltimore. In addition, she supervised a book store and printing business. In January 1777, when the Second Continental Congress decided that the Declaration of Independence should be widely distributed, Goddard offered the use of her press. Her copy, the Goddard Broadside, was the second printed and the first to include the names of the signatories.

 

 

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