Hazard, Ebenezer

Hazard, Ebenezer, 1744–1817, American public official and historian, b. Philadelphia. He became a publisher in New York City. He was appointed (1775) first postmaster of the city under the Continental Congress, made (1776) surveyor general of the Continental Post Office, and in 1782 succeeded Richard Bache as Postmaster General. This office he held until Sept., 1789, when, under the new Federal Constitution, the Post Office establishment was reorganized. Under him the mail was first carried in stagecoaches on main routes, displacing the old horse-and-rider system. He edited two volumes of Historical Collections (1792–94, repr. 1969).