n the accounts
of his predecessor, Dr. Tobias Watkins.

Postmaster-General McLean, of Ohio, who had been avowedly a Jackson
man while he was a member of Mr. Adams' Administration, rebelled
against the removal of several of his most efficient subordinates,
because of their political action during the preceding Presidential
campaign. At last he flatly told General Jackson that if he must
remove those postmasters who had taken an active part in politics,
he should impartially turn out those who had worked to secure the
election of General Jackson, as well as those who had labored to
re-elect Mr. Adams. To his General Jackson at first made no reply,
but rose from his seat, puffing away at his pipe; and after walking
up and down the floor two or three times, he stopped in front of
his rebellious Postmaster-General, and said, "Mr. McLean, will you
accept a seat upon the bench of the Supreme Court?" The judicial
position thus tendered was accepted with thanks, and the Post-Office
Department was placed under the direction of Major Barry, who was
invited to take a seat in the Cabinet (never occupied by his
predecessors), and who not only made the desired removals and
appointments, but soon plunged the finances of the Department into
a chaotic state of disorder.

Prominent among those "Jackson men" who received lucrative mail
contracts from Postmaster-General Barry, was "Land Admiral" Reeside,
an appellation he owed to the executive ability which he had
displayed in organizing mail routes between distant cities. He
was a very tall man, well formed, with florid complexion, red hair,
and side whiskers. Very obligingly, he once had a horse belonging
to a Senator taken from Pittsburg to Washington tied behind a stage,
because the owner had affixed his "frank" to the animal's halter.
He was the first mail contractor who ran his stages between
Philadelphia and the West, by night as well as by day, and Mr.
Joseph R. Chandler, of the United States _Gazette_, said that "the
Admiral could leave Philadelphia on a six-horse coach with a hot
johnny-cake in his pocket and reach Pittsburg before it could grow
cold." He used to ridicule the locomotives when they were first
introduced, and offer to bet a thousand dollars that no man could
build a machine that would drag a stage from Washington to Baltimore
quicker than his favorite team of iron-grays.

Mail robberies were not uncommon in those days, although the crime
was punishable wi