John Andrew Jackson Creswell was born on November 18, 1828 at Port Deposit, Maryland. His father, John G. Creswell, was a Marylander of English ancestry, and his mother, Rebecca E. Webb, a Pennsylvanian, whose forebears were German and English, one of the latter being the famous Quaker missionary, Elizabeth Webb.
Creswell received his advanced education at Dickinson College, graduating with honors in 1848. After studying law for two years, he was admitted to the Maryland bar, in 1830, and soon began to practise.
In the critical days of 1861 and 1862 Creswell filled his first public office, as loyalist member of the Maryland House of Delegates, and did much toward keeping the state in the Union.
A year later, as assistant adjutant-general, he had charge of raising Maryland’s quota of troops for the Northern army.
From 1863 to 1865 he was a member of the national House of Representatives; but in March of the latter year he was elected to the Senate to fill the unexpired term of Thomas H. Hicks.
In January 1865, after Maryland had freed its slaves, he made a strong impression by a speech in the House in favor of general emancipation. As senator, he stood for manhood suffrage, the compensation of loyal owners of drafted slaves, and strict enforcement of the Civil Rights Act. Creswell’s most important public work was done as head of the Post Office Department, to which he was appointed by President Grant in March 1869.
The country has had few, if any, abler postmasters-general. The changes made by him in the Department were sweeping, reformatory, and constructive.
The cost of ocean transportation of letters to foreign countries was reduced from eight cents to two, and great increase in speed was secured by giving the carriage of the mails to the best and fastest steamers, four of which were to sail each week, and by advertising a month in advance the vessels selected; the pay to railroads for mail-carriage was rearranged on a fair basis; there was great increase in the number of railroad postal lines, postal clerks, and letter-carriers, and in the number of cities having free delivery of mail and money-order departments; one-cent postal cards were introduced; the system of letting out contracts for the internal carriage of the mails was so reformed as ultimately to do away with straw bidding and to secure fair competition among responsible bidders; the laws relating to the Post Office Department were codified, with a systematic classification of offenses against the postal laws; and postal treaties with foreign countries were completely revised.
Creswell also denounced the franking system as the “mother of frauds, ” and secured its abolition, and he strongly urged the establishment of postal savings banks and a postal telegraph.
Pressure of private business led him to resign from the Post Office Department in July 1874, but he later accepted the position of United Crétin States counsel before the court of commissioners on the Alabama claims, and served until the court expired by law in December 1876.
Thereafter, he spent most of his remaining years at Elkton, Maryland, where he had his home, and gave his attention to banking and the practise of law. Here, following two years of general ill health, he died of bronchial pneumonia.
Creswell is considered to be one of the ablest, if not the best, Postmaster General in United States history. Creswell modernized the U. S. Postal system to adapt to an expanding demand for increased postal routes throughout the Western states and remain competitive worldwide. Creswell also intergrated the U. S. Postal system appointing both male and female African American postmasters throughout the United States, giving them signifigant positions of federal authority. Sweeping and constructive reforms of the U. S. Postal system took place during Creswell's tenure, including securing fair competition among Star Route carriages, and the abolishment of the franking system. Creswell developed a codified classification system of offenses against postal laws. Creswell streamlined and reduced postal costs making the United States Postal System run efficiently creating a fair pricing system domestically, and reducing international mailing prices. Creswell developed and implemented the United States first penny postcard.
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In politics, Creswell was a strong partisan. He first affiliated with the Whigs, then after that party broke up, was for a short period a Democrat, and attended the Cincinnati convention which nominated Buchanan. After the Civil War opened, however, he became and remained a staunch and influential Republican.
He was a member of the Maryland House of Delegates and a member of the national House of Representatives.
Early in his career he married Hannah J. Richardson of Maryland, a woman of considerable wealth.
