John Sessford (ca. 1776–1862), clerk, was a native of England who settled in Philadelphia by 1797 and was naturalized in 1802 in Washington, D.C. He was trained as a printer and worked initially for the Washington National Intelligencer. From at least 1808 until his death, the Treasury Department employed Sessford as a clerk. He became known as the “Father of the City” due to his extensive voluntary work compiling annual statistics related to Washington’s growth and development. Sessford’s statistical tables first appeared in the Washington Daily National Intelligencer in 1822 and continued until 1860 (Sessford’s naturalization record [DNA: RG 21, CCDCMB, 14 Aug. 1802]; Record of Pennsylvania Marriages Prior to 1810 [1968; repr. from Pennsylvania Archives, vols. 8–9 (1880–90)], 1:768; Edmund F. Brown, comp., The Reference Book of the United States [1841], 35; DNA: RG 29, CS, D.C., Washington, 1820–50; Wilhelmus Bogart Bryan, A History of the National Capital: From its Foundation through the Period of the Adoption of the Organic Act [1914–16], 2:12–3; “The Sessford Annals,” RCHS description begins Records of the Columbia Historical Society, 1897–1989 description ends 11 [1908]: 271–388; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, 27 Feb. 1822, 25 Feb. 1862).