Thomas Lemuel James (March 29, 1831 – September 11, 1916) was an American journalist, government official, and banker who served as the United States Postmaster General in 1881.
Early life and family
James was born in Utica, New York, to William James and Jane Maria Price. His grandparents on both sides had emigrated from Wales in 1800. He had very little formal schooling, though studied for a short time at the Utica Academy. At the age of 15, James learned the trade of printing at the office of Utica "Liberty Press" under Westley Bailey, a noted abolitionist of the time. The abolition paper printed here later partnered with Francis B. Fisher in Hamilton, New York to form the Whig newspaper Madison County Journal which he bought in 1851. When the Republican party made their first canvass in 1856, the newspaper merged with the Democratic Reflector under the name of the Democratic Republican, which would lead the opposition against the Know Nothing Party.
James married four times, first to Emily Ida Freedburn in 1852, then to E. R. Borden, later to Edith Colborne, and in 1911 to Florence MacDonnell Gaffney. James later received honorary LL.D. degrees from Madison College (now Colgate University), the College of St. Francis Xavier in New York City, and St. John's University, also in New York City.
James was appointed to the position of deputy collector in 1870 and put in charge of the warehouse division and bonded warehouses of the port. James had much success in the new position, organizing the records of the division, which had been in confusion, in only a month, and bringing the work up to date, which had been up to three years behind, in only six months. Afterwards, he was appointed by Chester A. Arthur, then Collector of the Port of New York, to be a member of the civil service board of the collector's and surveyor's offices and made its chairman. He became one of the first public officials to advocate for the reform of civil service by appointing positions on the basis of examination and merit.
James was one of the founders and the first "Grand Monarch" of the Mystic Order of Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm, an appendant body in Freemasonry.