1871 Autograph Letter Signed by Norton P. Chipman, Secretary of Washington D.C. and soon-to-be Delegate to Congress, to Journalist Benjamin Perley Poore.

List of new Washington, D.C. political appointments under the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871

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Norton P. Chipman, newly appointed Secretary of Washington, D.C. under the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871, here writes to Washington correspondent for the Boston Journal, Benjamin Perley Poore. Chipman writes: “I send names & residence[s] so far as I can of the officers of Dist. Gov’t as now appointed. I can give you the council in a day or two.” Eleven names are listed including his own and the officers of the Board of Public Works and the Board of Health.

The 1871 Act formed a single municipal government for the federal district. Chipman served as Secretary of the district for only a few weeks when he was elected District delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives, defeating Frederick Douglass in the Republican party convention.

“In 1854 Poore became Washington correspondent for the Boston Journal, covering government, the military, and society; he held this position until 1883. His routine was to send condensed daily proceedings of Congress…and brief daily news dispatches by telegraph. Several times a week the Journal published letters from Poore that mixed important news with gossip. These letters were signed ‘Perley,’ as were all his news dispatches, and were printed under the standing title ‘Waifs from Washington.’” (ANB)

A letter with significant content concerning the new government of the federal district sent to an important American journalist.

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