1868-1869 Cover From Wellwood Post Office Haywood County Tennessee

I know this is a longshot, but I thought I'd run it by the experts here.

My great-great grandfather John J. Jones was briefly the postmaster at the Wellwood post office in Haywood County, Tennessee. He was nominated by Andrew Johnson on February 10, 1868 and is shown as the postmaster in the 1869 Official Register of federal employees. However, by the time of the 1870 census, his occupation was listed as "dry goods merchant," not postmaster.

There is some interesting historical writing on these appointments by Andrew Johnson, who made them as part of his quixotic patronage campaign to win renomination as the Republican candidate in the November 1868 election.

So it is not clear to me when my ancestor was postmaster at Wellwood, but sometime between between Feb. 1868 and mid-1869 would be roughly right.

I know nothing about covers, but I would love to find a cover from this time period from the Wellwood post office.

Is this a hopeless search? If there is a chance I could find one, how would I go about starting on the search?

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Doug Herbert

Snopes:

It will take blind luck and persistance to find a Wellwood, Tennessee cover from the 1860 period when you ancestor was postmaster. Create an ebay search and wait.

Ask dealers at shows. Look through covers regularly. You may have to settle at first for one from the later part of the 19th century.

Postmaster appointments. You are incorrect that President Andrew Johnson would have appointed John J. Jones as the postmaster for Wellwood. The guideline was that postmasters at post offices where the compensation was $1000 or greater would be appointment by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Your Official Register reference shows his compensation was $17 during 1867.

Postmasters for smaller post offices were appointed by the Postmaster General, who at that time would have been Alexander W Randall.

Here is an example of the type of postmaster commission he would have received. This one is for William J Keith, who was appointed postmaster at Montgomery, Morgan County, Tennessee on August 24, 1866.




PS: Finding your ancestor, John J. Jones, postmaster commission document would require even better blind luck and persistence than finding a cover -- unless the family preserved it.

MikeL

edited for spelling

MikeL -

Thank you very much. That is tremendously helpful.

I wasn't being precise about the mechanism by which the appointment was made, but it's interesting to know it was technically made by the Postmaster General. Even $17 was good pay for part-time work, so it would have been part of the patronage campaign.

There is a fascinating doctoral dissertation about Andrew Johnson's use of patronage as a tool in his battle with the Radical Republicans -- James Lewis Baumgardner, "Andrew Johnson and the Patronage" (University of Tennessee 1968). According to this dissertation, at the time when John was appointed postmaster, Andrew Johnson was firing Radical Republican postmasters (and other holders of patronage jobs) and replacing them with more moderate Republicans -- but with Republicans. At this time, the entire Congressional delegation from Tennessee (which had been readmitted to the Union in 1866) was Republican, including the congressman from Brownsville, who would have to approve the appointment of the postmaster at Sellwood.

I have a link to the online version of the doctoral dissertation, in case you're interested in that level of history. However, I don't think I am allowed to post it here under the rules because I have not yet posted 50 messages.

That $17 was the pay for the twelve months period between July 1, 1866 and June 30, 1867, or from the date in that range where he was appointment postmaster until June 30th.

Skip the story and run a classified in one of or several US Stamp or Postal History journals. Jim Forte postal history also has a ability on his website to search by town name and set up a request to be notified should one become available.

Having answered the question. Nice story and a reasonable endeavor. I have some items which passed through my Dad's offices during his tenure. As you may guess, I have an interest in Parcel Post and have mail from the commission studying post road and parcel post roads sent to my relative involved during the start of the Parcel Post Service.

Edit for screen shot:

It sounds as though you're an expert on postmaster records. I wonder if this record of the appointment of John J. Jones provides any further information to an expert about how long he served?

I apologize for the quality. The size limitations on photos here make it difficult to upload legible photos.

Speaking of blind luck this, "Haywood County Tennessee Brownsville Stanton Nutbush TN 1989 Family History Book" is listed on ebay right now with the listing title quoted here.

Edit: This is fun as well -- https://teva.contentdm.oclc.org/dig...l23/id/9918/ <<<RFD, and more, map of Haywood County by USPOD.

Thank you ParcelPostGuy, also tremendously helpful.

I've had my eye on that Haywood County history for some time now, but $150 is a little rich for my taste (but better than the $418 asking price on Amazon).

Doug

Snopes:

Since the last entry in this ledger record for the Wellwood post office is John J Jones's appointment of 10 Feb (18)68, I suspect there is another Postmaster Appointment Ledger that continues with a list of appointments. If I recall correctly, Every 10-20 years or so, the Post Office Appointment Office closed out the current set of ledgers as they became filled and started a new series of ledgers to keep track of new appointments.

It looks like you got this page from the microfilms of Postmaster Appointments, probably at Ancestry or the NARA website. Go back and look around some more. You will probably find a ledger that begins with the appointment of the next postmaster and his date of appointment, which will roughly approximate when Jones ended his tenure. Much depends on the circumstances of Jones "retirement". If it was a planned transition, the new postmaster would be typically be appointed and confirmed before Jones was permitted to give up the position. If Jones died, then there is no real way to determine his last day in office other than estimating it as the date of death.

mml1942, you must be correct as the office did not close until 1905. (Snopes, see my edit in my post just above.)

Wow, you two are a gold mine of information. mml1942, you are correct that I got my information from Ancestry. I was able to browse forward to future years and find out the following information for Wellwood postmasters:

John J. Jones (my great-great grandfather) - appointed Feb. 10, 1868
John A. Carr - appointed June 14, 1882
Edison M. Ricks - appointed Dec. 14, 1884
[Ishley??] P. Pipkin - appointed Jan. 23, 1891
.... [various other appointments]
Post office at Wellwood closed - Effective Aug. 31, 1905

This blows to heck my theory that my great-great grandfather Jones' appointment would have been a short-lived one because of Andrew Johnson's patronage campaign.

But this information also makes my search for a cover from the time of a great-great grandfather somewhat easier because Edison M. Ricks (appointed in 1884) is ALSO one of my great-great grandfathers.

Jones' daughter Mary Frank Jones, married Edison's son, James Hulet Ricks.

So, for purposes of finding a cover, any time between Feb. 10, 1868 - June 13, 1882 would be one great-great grandfather (John J. Jones) and any time between December 14, 1884 and Jan. 23, 1891 would be another great-great grandfather (Edison Monroe Ricks).

And I bit the bullet and bought that History of Haywood County. Thanks very much for the link and for the cool RFD map.

Way more productive than my idle question could have been expected to lead to.

Doug

I wish you luck! I am trying to find info on Morgan County, but some of the facts as listed make no sense. First Montgomery appears to have been the county seat from 1818 but may have had no post office. 2nd Montgomery (referred to as Montgomery by everyone else) was the county sear from "sometime" until 1866, with no post office or postmaster recorded until this point (guessing that is about 40 years). My ancestor basically founded the first Montgomery, for what it is worth.

Pretty famous place, although today there is only a grain elevator and a country store in Nutbush.

Somewhere I have a picture I took there of a "Nutbush" sign— it doesn't say " Nutbush City Limits", like the song, and it was the childhood home of Tina Turner.

I was lucky enough to hear her sing it back in the 80's.