Samuel Osgood, Former Postmaster General

Appointed by President George Washington as the first U.S. Postmaster General under the U.S. Constitution, Samuel Osgood (1747–1813) took office in 1789.  He presided over a network of 75 post offices and 2,400 miles of post roads.  A resident of New York, Osgood provided his family home at 3 Cherry Street, considered to be the finest house in the city, to President Washington; the residence thus became the new nation’s first executive mansion.  When the federal government moved to Philadelphia in 1791, Osgood chose to stay in New York and resigned his appointment as Postmaster General.  He continued his career in public service as a member of the state assembly.  In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson appointed Osgood as Naval Officer of the Port of New York, a position he held until his death in 1813.

Russian-American sculptor Gleb W. Derujinsky was born to aristocratic parents in Smolensk, Russia, in 1888.  A student of Rodin, Derujinsky studied at the Académie Julian in Paris and the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg.  After the Russian Revolution, he departed Crimea as a sailor on a ship bound for America.  Derujinsky arrived in the U.S. in 1919, and soon established himself as a prominent sculptor in New York.  Among his best known works are portrait busts of presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy.