1. Obadiah Bruen Brown (1779–1852), a native of Newark, New Jersey, was appointed pastor of the First Baptist Church of Washington in 1807 and held that position for forty-three years. He also served as chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1807–9 and 1814–15, and chaplain of the Senate, 1809–10. Hired as a clerk in the Post Office Department in March 1816, he rose to become chief clerk and head of the contract division in Andrew Jackson’s administration. His reputation suffered as a result of Congress’s 1833 investigation of corruption in the department, and he resigned under pressure in 1835 (Encyclopedia of Southern Baptists, s.v. “Brown, Obadiah Bruen”; Annals of Congress description begins Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States … (42 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1834–56). description ends , 10th Cong., 1st sess., 800; ibid., 2d sess., 473; ibid., 11th Cong., 2d sess., 480–81, 685; ibid., 3d sess., 19; ibid., 13th Cong., 3d sess., 308; ibid., 14th Cong., 1st sess., 381; Letter from the Post-Master General, Transmitting a Report of the Clerks Employed in His Office during the Year 1816; And the Compensation Allowed to Each [Washington, D.C., 1817; Shaw and Shoemaker description begins R. R. Shaw and R. H. Shoemaker, comps., American Bibliography: A Preliminary Checklist for 1801–1819 (22 vols.; New York, 1958–66). description ends 42620], 4; Wayne E. Fuller, Morality and the Mail in Nineteenth-Century America [Urbana, Ill., 2003], 36–38).