Longest-Serving Postmasters*

*known to date as having served continuously at the same Post Office

During the Postal Service's more than two centuries of service, the postmasters with the longest known, continuous service at the same Post Office are:

Postmaster/Post Office	Years	Period
Roswell Beardsley, North Lansing, NY	74	1828-1902
John N. Van Zandt, Blawenburg, NJ	69	1866-1935
Archie L. Wardeska, Irondale, OH	64	1933-1997
Edgar S. Kumley, Redig, SD	63	1949- as of August 2012
Albert G. Mahar, Dennysville, ME	63	1935-1998
Levi A. Deike, Hye, TX	62	1934-1996
Norma Jean Larry, Cable, OH	62	1948- 2011
Lillian W. Bowles, Wonalancet, NH	60	1932-1992
Milo F. Winchester, South Amenia, NY	60	1849-1909
David G. Ballengee, Clayton, WV	59	1879-1939
Samuel G. Lowery, Burnt Corn, AL	59	1936-1995
Charles DePrefontaine, Blue Bell, PA	59	1867-1926

Roswell Beardsley, Postmaster for More Than 74 Years

Roswell Beardsley was appointed postmaster of North Lansing, New York, in 1828, at the age of 18, and served until his death in 1902 at the age of 93. He ran the Post Office in his small country store and was well-loved by his patrons, some of whose families he served for five generations.

photo courtesy Anne Fickbohm, August 2012

Edgar Kumley, Longest Currently-Serving Postmaster

Edgar Kumley does not know exactly when he was born — the hospital records were lost in a fire decades ago — but he knows it was when Woodrow Wilson was in the White House, in 1919 or 1920.

When Kumley was barely three years old his father, Earl, was appointed postmaster of the Redig, South Dakota, Post Office. During the Great Depression, the elder Kumley went to work for the Resettlement Administration and Edgar’s mother, Ella, was appointed postmaster.

Kumley remembers entire families during the Dust Bowl, walking westward across the prairie while carrying all their possessions. “We would take them in and feed them, and the next morning they were on their way again across the gumbo,” he recalled.

In 1948, while Harry Truman was president, Edgar Kumley became the acting postmaster of Redig; he was appointed postmaster on March 25, 1949. And there he remains, with more than six decades on the job. For 102 years there has been a Post Office in Redig, and for 89 of those years there has been a Kumley behind the counter.

HISTORIAN

UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE

AUGUST 2012