From Benjamin Franklin to Ebenezer Hazard, 3 August 1775
To Ebenezer Hazard4
ALS: American Philosophical Society
Philada. Aug. 3. 1775
Sir,
I received your Application to be appointed Postmaster of New York, and have seen a Recommendation of you by your Provincial Congress, to which I shall pay due Respect by appointing you accordingly as soon as Commissions and Instructions can be printed, and things got in Readiness to carry the Post through. In the mean time I wish to receive from you an Account of the present State of its Management, as far as is within your Knowledge; and am, Sir, Your most obedient humble Servant
B Franklin
Mr Hazard
Addressed: To / Mr Hazard / Postmr / New York / per favour of / Mr Lewis.5
Endorsed: Letter Dr. Benja. Franklin Augst. 3d. 1775
4. Hazard (1744–1817), the son of a Philadelphia merchant and in his youth a close friend of Benjamin Rush, graduated from the College of New Jersey in 1762, moved to New York, and became a partner in the publishing firm of Noel & Hazard. In May, 1775, the New York committee of safety authorized him to reorganize the local post office, and in July the provincial congress recommended him as “a most careful, fit, and proper person” to be postmaster. Two months later his appointment was confirmed; see BF’s letter to him below, Sept. 25, 1775. In the fullness of time he became postmaster general. Journals of the Provincial Congress . . . of New York, 1775–1776–1777 (2 vols., Albany, 1842), I, 90; Lyman H. Butterfield, ed., Letters of Benjamin Rush (2 vols., Princeton, 1951), I, 6 n; James McLachlan, Princetonians, 1748–1768 . . . (Princeton, 1976), pp. 378–84; DAB.
5. No doubt Francis Lewis, a New York delegate, for whom see the DAB.