Curator’s Corner

Published:  Monday, November 2, 2009 (3 months, 1 week ago)
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By Gary Levitt

The first post office in our town was established under the name of Section Ten and was located in Van Wert County. According to post office records the official date was June 30, 1846 with Amos Clutter being appointed the first postmaster.  On January 22, 1850, Andrew Linn became the postmaster and remained postmaster when the name of the city was officially changed to Delphos on February 10, 1851. Over the next 158 years several long-standing Delphos families’ members have served as postmaster. If you recall in a previous article, I outlined the role the Shenk and Truesdale families played as they see sawed back and forth.  But for a just a moment let’s move up to current times for a quick update.
While we were boarding the bus for New York on October 7, 2009, a moment of postal history was being made right here in Delphos Ohio. On the steps of the Delphos Post Office, Marilyn Mulholland was sworn in as the 21st postmaster of our town. Before coming to Delphos as the Officer-in-charge on January 22, 2009, Postmaster Mulholland was the head of the Celina office.
We are fortunate to have someone of her caliber to serve in this capacity. I have known Marilyn for several years and her enthusiasm for wanting to come to Delphos and to be a part of this community are quite evident by the activities she has already become a part of. I hope that each of you take a moment to meet your new postmaster;  I am sure you will find her very interested in providing excellent customer service.
You might be surprised to know that Marilyn is not the first woman to be the postmaster of Delphos. On September 19, 1854, President Franklin Pierce appointed Mary A. Risley Postmaster of Delphos. Risley succeeded her late husband Winchot. It really became a family affair when their son Charles Risley became a postal clerk in the office while his mother was postmaster. Risley remained postmaster until February 3, 1879 completing over 24 years of service. On that date Joseph H. Cowden was appointed ending the long career of Delphos’s first female postmaster. Although sometimes popularly referred to as “postmistresses,” the official title for female postmasters has always been “postmaster.”
On the national scene you might find it surprising to know that there were two women who had served our nation as postmasters during the colonial period. They were Lydia Hill who served in the capacity of postmaster of Salem Massachusetts and Sarah Updike Goddard who performed the duties of postmaster of Providence, Rhode Island. Sarah holds the distinction of being the mother of the first female postmaster of the United States – Mary Katherine Goddard who remained postmaster of Baltimore until Postmaster General Samuel Osgood removed her from office in November 1789 in order to place one of his associates in the job. As you may recall until the Postal Reorganization act of 1971, postmaster appointments were part of the political spoils.
Following the Civil War, in the South many women were hired as postmasters. One of the reasons for this was prospective postmasters had to swear that they had not voluntarily aided the Confederacy or Confederate soldiers. Very few men could honestly take that oath. In 1872, America saw its first African-American female postmaster. Anna M. Dumas served as postmaster of Covington, Louisiana. Because of WWII, in 1943 more than 17,500 out of 42,680 offices were lead by female postmasters and in August 1949, more than 40 percent of the nation’s 41,575 postmasters were women.
On February 3, 1958, the Post Office Department issued a press release concerning female postmasters.  It was announced that “lady postmasters,” comprised “the largest number of women branch managers of any business type operation in the world.”  Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield stated:
With our near 16,000 women Postmasters representing close to half of our entire management staff, we believe it is fair to say the American Post Office Department . . . recognizes the management abilities of women perhaps more than any other private or governmental organization anywhere.
According to recent records, in 2008 of the nation’s 25,089 postmasters, 15,388 were women, thus representing more than 61 percent. I believe you will continue to see that statistic grow.

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