In 1775, when Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first Postmaster General, the U.S. Post Office was born. So important was the Postmaster General that in 1829 this position was included among those in the President's Cabinet. As America began to grow and new towns and villages began to appear, so too did the Post Office along with them. The dates and postmarks generated from these places often has provided the historian with a window into a given time and place in question. Each postmark is uniquely distinctive with its own name of state and town, in addition to its distinctive date.