14. NATHAN KELSEY HALL.--Born at Skaneateles, N. Y., March 28th, 1810. Removed to Aurora in the same State in 1826, and commenced the study of the law with Millard Fillmore. Removed with the latter to Buffalo in 1830. Admitted to the Bar in 1832. Appointed First Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in 1841. In 1845 elected a member of the State Legislature, and in 1846 a member of Congress. He was appointed Post Master General July 20, 1850; and, in 1852, United States Judge for the Northern District of New York, which office he now holds.
15. SAMUEL DICKINSON HUBBARD.--Born at Middletown, Ct., August 10, 1799. Graduated at Yale College in 1819. He was admitted to the Bar in 1822, but subsequently engaged in manufacturing enterprises. He was Mayor of the city of Middletown, and held other offices of local trust. In 1845 he was elected a member of Congress, and re-elected in 1847. He was appointed Post Master General September 14, 1852. Died at Middletown October 8, 1855.
16. JAMES CAMPBELL, the present Post Master General of the United States, was born September 1, 1813, in the city of Philadelphia, Pa. Admitted to the Bar in 1834, at the age of twenty-one years. In 1841, at the age of twenty-eight, he was appointed Judge of the Common Pleas Court for the City and County of Philadelphia, which position he occupied for the term of nine years. In 1851, when the Constitution of the State was changed, making the Judiciary elective, he was nominated by a State Convention of his party as a candidate for the Bench of the Supreme Court of the State, but was defeated after a warmly contested and somewhat peculiar contest, receiving however 176,000 votes. In January, 1852, he was appointed Attorney General of Pennsylvania, which he resigned to assume the duties of Post Master General. He was appointed to that office on the 8th of March, 1853.
A mail bag is an epitome of human life. All the elements which go to form the happiness or misery of individuals--the raw material, so to speak, of human hopes and fears--here exist in a chaotic state. These elements are imprisoned, like the winds in the fabled cave of Æolus, "biding their time" to go forth and fulfil their office, whether it be to refresh and invigorate the drooping flower, or to bring destruction upon the proud and stately forest-king.