ABSTRACT
Upon being appointed postmaster general of the United States of America in 1782, Ebenezer Hazard designed a seal for the burgeoning postal service. Hazard, a classicist and a Greek scholar, chose as the symbol of the post o ce the Roman god Mercury, the messenger of the gods and patron of commerce and travel. Mercury stood for the activities and characteristics that Hazard and his contemporaries, the Americans attempting to win independence from Great Britain, most cherished. Hazard’s role during the War of American Independence was that of a messenger. When the war began he was appointed postmaster for New York; when New York fell to the British in 1776 he earned the job of surveyor of post roads. He succeeded so well as surveyor – planning, maintaining, and securing post roads – that he was appointed postmaster general. roughout this con ict Hazard, constantly ‘hurried through life on horseback’, anchored himself in the written word. He was, like all of his friends and contemporaries of culture and learning, a master of the epistle. His favourite correspondent, Jeremy Belknap, was also devoted to the epistler’s art. e two men lived in di erent parts of the country, but being hungry to know all that was happening in war and government, took upon themselves the onus of being messengers to one-another, sending news and commentary – their own and that of others as well – whenever the post presented the opportunity. e letters of Hazard and Belknap are lled with attempts to understand and to impart intelligence to others.1
