Abraham Bradley, Jr. (1767 - 1838) was an American lawyer, judge, and cartographer who served as assistant postmaster general for thirty years. Bradley was responsible for moving the federal post office from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. and even hosted the national post office in his home for a period. He was employed under five different U.S. postmasters general and drew detailed and innovative maps of postal routes. Bradley, after having established his private law practice in 1788, briefly served as a county judge. There he became acquainted with Timothy Pickering, who was appointed by President Washington as postmaster general in 1791. Bradley served as his clerk, and began compiling information for a complete postal service map. Bradley's extensive knowledge of the department and the routes made him indispensable when Pickering was succeeded in 1795. Bradley is regarded as an influential figure in the early history of the Post Office. His postal routes and schedules were rigidly enforced for thirty years and gave the department a 'rapid and reliable engine for delivering information across vast distances'. More by this mapmaker...

Jedidiah Morse (August 23, 1761 – June 9, 1826) was an American geographer and minister active in Connecticut during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Morse wan born in Woodstock, Connecticut and studied at Yale University, earning a M. A. in 1786. He advocated for better education for young women and founded a school to this end in New Haven in 1783. Morse was active in religious circles and often railed against the 'assaults of Unitarianism.' Nonetheless, it was as an advocate for women's education that Morse contributed the most to cartography. Recognizing a need for better textbooks, he published a series of geographies including Geography Made Easy (1784), American Geography (1789), and the Universal Geography of the United States (1797). His work with geographical textbooks earned him the informal title 'Father of American Geography.' He married Elizabeth Ann Finley Breese sometime after 1789, when he became a pastor in Charlestown, Boston, with whom he had several children. His eldest son, Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872), was a noted painter and telegraphy pioneer (also a co-developer of Morse code). Some of his other children were Sidney Edwards Morse (February 7, 1794 - December 24, 1871), a noted geographer and inventor, and Richard Cary Morse (1795 - 1868), who helped his father with his geographical work and founded the New York Observer with his brother Sidney. Learn More...