GRANGER, GIDEON ( 1767-1822). An Ameri can politician, for thirteen years Postmaster General of the United States. Ile was born at Suffield, Conn.; graduated at Yale in 1798, stud ied law and was admitted to the and was elected to the Connecticut Assembly, where he became one of the most influential Anti-Federalist leaders in the State. He is said to have orig inated the Connecticut school fund. When Jeffer son was elected to the Presidency he recognized the necessity of revolutionizing the Federalist character of New England, and with this end in view, in 1801 appointed Levi Lincoln Attorney General, Henry Dearborn Secretary of War, and Gideon Granger Postmaster-General. The last was not then a Cabinet officer, but his patronage was exceedingly large, and there was no require ment that his appointments he confirmed by the Senate. Granger's position enabled him to keep in touch with political affairs in every part of the country, and his principal services to Jefferson were of a personal nature in apprising him of the machinations of the politicians, and the trend of popular feeling. It was he who, in 1804,
scented Burr's conspiracy with the Federalists. In the same year, while retaining his Federal office, be became agent for the New England Mississippi Company, and openly lobbied for the compromise of the Yazoo Claims (q.v.) on the floor of the House. Granger continued to hold office under Madison until 1814, when his alliance with the Giles-Leib faction, and his appointment of Leib as postmaster at Philadelphia, in the face of the President's opposition, led to his removal from office. Later he settled in New York, where he served teveral terms in the Legislature, and be came a follower of De Witt Clinton.