John Foxcroft (154)

Election date: 1768 (Elected to the revived American Philosophical Society and the American Society.)

John Foxcroft (?–c. 13 May 1790) was the joint deputy postmaster general for the Northern District of North America with Benjamin Franklin and a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Society, elected to both in 1768. Little is known of his early years in England, but by 1753 he had immigrated to Virginia. In 1758 he became private secretary to Governor Francis Fauquier, and three years later he was named deputy postmaster general with Franklin. In 1763 Foxcroft and Franklin journeyed from Virginia to New Hampshire, inspecting post roads, publishing rate tables, training postmasters, and ensuring the system’s solvency. The two became friendly, with Franklin asking Foxcroft to handle some of his wife’s business affairs. In 1765 Foxcroft moved to Philadelphia, where he continued to improve the postal system: he established new routes, chose riders, and took steps to guarantee the mail’s security, all while forwarding accounts to Franklin in London. In 1766 he named his brother, APS member Thomas Foxcroft, postmaster of Philadelphia. During a visit to England, John joined Franklin and others in forming the Grand Ohio Company. He returned to Philadelphia in 1770, but in 1772 British authorities relocated the headquarters of the American post office to New York and Foxcroft followed. The American Revolution brought trouble for the postmaster general. Mail was seized in transit and read publicly, and the Sons of Liberty endorsed a rival postal system beyond the crown’s control. Although he had purchased two dozen copies of John Dickinson’s Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, Foxcroft remained a Loyalist. He was imprisoned in 1776 after refusing to take the oath of allegiance. Once freed, he became the head of the British Post Office’s packet service at New York, a post he held until his death in 1790. (PI)

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