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Franking question
I have a letter written in November of 1844, posted from Washington,
D.C., with a franked signature that appears to include the last name "Benjamin" (with first initial "R" or "P" or "J" or "S"--difficult to tell). The author of the letter is a young woman (her signed name, perhaps a nickname, is indecipherable) but from the internal evidence of the letter my guess is that she was the daughter of a high-ranking naval officer or other official involved with the Navy. My understanding (open to correction) is that naval officers and other government officials had fairly wide franking privileges. Unfortunately, I have not been able to identify a contemporaneous naval officer with the last name of "Benjamin." Hoping that this is not too far off topic, but can anyone point me to resources on franking, particularly some that might help me identify who franked the letter (and ultimately who was the author of the letter)? nomilk |
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#2
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Franking question
On Jun 12, 12:18 pm, nomilk wrote:
I have a letter written in November of 1844, posted from Washington, D.C., with a franked signature that appears to include the last name "Benjamin" (with first initial "R" or "P" or "J" or "S"--difficult to tell). The author of the letter is a young woman (her signed name, perhaps a nickname, is indecipherable) but from the internal evidence of the letter my guess is that she was the daughter of a high-ranking naval officer or other official involved with the Navy. My understanding (open to correction) is that naval officers and other government officials had fairly wide franking privileges. Unfortunately, I have not been able to identify a contemporaneous naval officer with the last name of "Benjamin." Hoping that this is not too far off topic, but can anyone point me to resources on franking, particularly some that might help me identify who franked the letter (and ultimately who was the author of the letter)? nomilk Posting a hi-res scan would be useful. Could it be Benjamin F. Isherwood Benjamin (6 October 1822 - 19 June 1915) was an engineering officer in the United States Navy during the early days of steam-powered warships. He rose to thr rank of rear-admiral. Benjamin Franklin Isherwood was born in New York City on October 6, 1822 to the former Eliza Hicks. His father died young; Eliza then married John Green, an engineer whose great-grandfather was Captain DuClose, a distinguished military engineer on the staff of General Lafayette during the Revolutionary War. At the age of nine young Benjamin was enrolled in the Albany Academy, but was expelled five years later for "serious misconduct." In 1844, at the age of 22, Benjamin joined the United States Navy and saw action during the Mexican War. Prior to this he worked for the Utica and Schenectady Railroad and trained under William C. Young, one of the most prominent engineers of that period. Isherwood then worked on the Croton Aqueduct, followed by an engineering job on the Erie Canal. Designing and constructing lighthouses for the Treasury Department was Isherwood's last employment before joining the Navy. When the Mexican War ended, Benjamin Franklin Isherwood was assigned to the Washington Navy Yard where he assisted his old boss, Charles B. Stuart, in designing ships and experiments with steam as a source of power for propelling ships. In 1861 Isherwood was appointed Engineer-in-Chief of the United States Navy and in 1862 became the first Chief of the Bureau of Steam engineering, a post he held for eight years. When the Civil War began the Navy had 28 steam vessels and during the war the number grew to 600. The design and construction of the machinery necessary to accomplish this was done by Isherwood. He designed ships that were fast enough to pursue the blockade runners. In 1863 and 1865 he published the first and second volumes of Experimental Researches in Steam Engineering which were translated into six languages and became a standard engineering text upon which future steam experimentation was based. In 1870-71 Isherwood conducted experiments that resulted in a propeller that was used by the Navy for the next 27 years. Benjamin Franklin Isherwood retired from the Navy in 1884. He died in 1915 and was buried in Oakland Cemetery. The steam engineering building at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, is named "Isherwood Hall" in his honor. In the USNI proceedings of 1941 George W. Dyson stated that Isherwood might possibly be the greatest engineer the United States Navy had developed. http://navysite.de/ao/isherwood.jpg |
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