1751-1815 Postmaster General

Washington's Man.

Appointed postmaster general by President George Washington in 1795, Joseph Habersham designed the hub-and-spoke system of sorting mail, which transformed the Post Office's functions. He also advocated home delivery but this policy did not become standard until a half century after his death. An innovative organizer, Habersham was offered the post of U.S. treasurer by President Thomas Jefferson but declined and resigned from the Post Office to return to his native Georgia.

Georgia Leader.

Habersham's father, James Habersham, had arrived in Georgia with evangelist George Whitefield in 1738. Beginning as a teacher of destitute children, James Habersham soon became a merchant trader and by the 1750s was Georgia's wealthiest and most powerful merchant and a leader in the movement to import slaves into the colony. By the 1770s Habersham's rice plantation earned him an annual income of $10,000, and he had served in...