The history of Judge Blair since his resignation is identified with that of our politics, in which he seems to take _a peaceful interest_.
WILLIAM DENNISON.—On the resignation of the Hon. Montgomery Blair, the President appointed this gentleman postmaster-general. This appointment, of course, was made to reconcile political interest and extend to Ohio the right hand of government friendship, and not from any great knowledge Mr. Dennison was supposed to have of postal matters. In this country prominent positions under government are the result of the recipient’s _status_ in political circles. It is, therefore, evident that a knowledge of its duties is not an important requisite qualification for the office.
William Dennison was born in the city of Cincinnati, on the 9th day of November, 1815. His father was well known through more than half a century as a popular and prosperous innkeeper in the young and rapidly growing city, no citizen in the whole community being more respected for probity and general worth among the pioneer settlers of Ohio and their descendants. He took great pride in his promising son, young William, and largely devoted his pecuniary means to secure the boy a thorough and solid classical education. In preparation for his college course he had the benefit of the best schools and teachers in his native city, and in the year 1831 he entered freshman in the Miami University at Oxford, Ohio, then and now a flourishing and highly-respected institution, which has educated many of the most prominent and powerful minds of the great and populous region north of the Ohio River, among whom are Caleb B. Smith, late Secretary of the Interior and formerly United States judge in Indiana, now deceased, Major-General Robert C. Schenck, Samuel Galloway, William S. Groesbeck, George E. Pugh, and others of equal note.
In September, 1835, near the close of his twentieth year, he graduated with high honor to himself and the university, then under the long successful presidency of the Rev. R. H. Bishop, D.D., a learned and venerated Presbyterian clergyman, who had early been induced to migrate from Scotland to the Northern United States by the solicitation and in the company of a renowned divine, John Mason, of the Scotch Presbyterian Church in New York, who at that time brought over a very useful and famous little clerical colony to this country.