Timothy Pickering, Former Postmaster General

Appointed by President George Washington in 1791, Timothy Pickering (1745–1829) served as U.S. Postmaster General until 1795.  He remained in the cabinet as Secretary of War, and then as Secretary of State, a role he continued in the Adams administration.  Under his leadership, the Post Office expanded to townships as far west as the Ohio River.  The number of post offices grew from 89 in 1791 to 450 in 1794.  Although mail delivery along the western routes was hazardous and often operated at a financial loss, it was deemed critical to the democratic spread of information within the new country.  Pickering also negotiated the first mail agreement with Canada, which allowed mail from Great Britain to travel via the port of New York overland to Montreal.

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.