James Noble Tyner

James Noble Tyner (January 17, 1826 – December 5, 1904) was a 19th-century American lawyer, Republican politician, U.S. Representative from Indiana, and U.S. Postmaster General who played a prominent and controversial role in the development and administration of the federal postal system. He served three terms in the United States House of Representatives from 1869 to 1875, and later held several senior posts in the Post Office Department under Presidents Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, and others.

Tyner was born in Brookville, Franklin County, Indiana, on January 17, 1826, one of twelve children of Richard Tyner and Martha Sedgwick Willis Swift Noble. His family was well connected in Indiana public life. His grandfather, William E. Tyner, was a pioneer Baptist minister who preached for many years in eastern Indiana. His father was a prominent businessman in the state, and his maternal uncle was Indiana Governor Noah Noble. Another close relative, James Noble, served as a United States Senator from Indiana. Tyner attended local schools and graduated from Brookville Academy in 1844. After completing his studies, he joined his father’s banking and business ventures, gaining early experience in finance and commercial affairs. He later studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1857, and established a legal practice in Peru, Indiana.

Tyner’s public career began in state government and party politics. From 1857 to 1861 he served as secretary of the Indiana Senate, an administrative position that introduced him to legislative procedure and Republican Party leadership. In the presidential election of 1860 he was chosen as a Republican presidential elector and cast his ballot in the Electoral College for Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin. With the onset of the Civil War and the expansion of federal responsibilities, Tyner entered national service as a special agent for the United States Post Office Department, a post he held from 1861 to 1866. In this capacity he became familiar with the operations and challenges of the postal system, experience that would shape his later career in Washington.

In 1869, Tyner was elected as a Republican to the United States House of Representatives from Indiana’s 8th Congressional District to fill the vacancy caused when Representative-elect Daniel D. Pratt resigned after winning a seat in the United States Senate. Tyner served in the 41st, 42nd, and 43rd Congresses from March 4, 1869, to March 3, 1875. During the 41st Congress (1869–1871) he served on the Committee on Education and Labor as a majority member and on the Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads, also as a majority member. In the 42nd Congress (1871–1873) he became chairman and a majority member of the Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads, and also served as a majority member of the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds and on the select committee on the Washington Monument. In the 43rd Congress (1873–1875) he was a majority member of the powerful Committee on Appropriations. Considered something of a reformer in his first two terms, Tyner was not a frequent orator but was noted for statistical accuracy and what contemporaries described as “sound reasoning.”

Tyner’s legislative record reflected both reformist impulses and the political controversies of the Reconstruction era. On February 5, 1870, he delivered his first major House speech, advocating the abolition of the congressional franking privilege, under which members of Congress sent mail free of charge. His position aligned with that of Postmaster General John Creswell, who also favored ending franking, but efforts to eliminate the privilege ultimately failed, and members of the House and Senate continued to send franked mail. Tyner also spoke against granting large land subsidies to the Northern Pacific Railroad, arguing that the vast territory between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean should be settled gradually by individual homesteaders rather than through massive grants to corporations. In a speech to the House on May 16, 1870, he stated that although he desired to see the region “teeming with an industrious population,” it would be better to reach that goal “by slow marches than to rush into a policy that will eventually retard its prosperity and check its growth.” His reputation suffered, however, after he voted for the so‑called Salary Grab Act, signed by President Grant on March 3, 1873, which doubled the president’s pay from $25,000 to $50,000, raised congressional salaries from $5,000 to $7,500, and included a $5,000 retroactive bonus for members. Public outcry over the measure was intense; although the congressional pay raise was repealed in January 1874, the political damage was lasting. Many incumbents lost renomination or re‑election, and Tyner was among those who lost their party’s nomination when he sought re‑election in 1874.

After leaving Congress, Tyner moved fully into executive-branch service. In February 1875, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him Second Assistant Postmaster General, serving under Postmaster General Marshall Jewell and First Assistant Postmaster General James William Marshall. Tyner held the post from February 26, 1875, to July 12, 1876, when Grant elevated him to succeed Jewell as Postmaster General. As Postmaster General, a position he held from July 12, 1876, to March 12, 1877, Tyner oversaw a rapidly expanding national mail system during the closing months of the Grant administration. He also secured the appointment of fellow Indianan and Civil War general Thomas J. Brady as his successor as Second Assistant Postmaster General. Brady would later become a central figure in the Star Route postal scandal. Tyner was a delegate to the International Postal Congress in Paris in 1878, reflecting his continued involvement in international postal policy.

With the inauguration of President Rutherford B. Hayes, Tyner remained in the upper ranks of the Post Office Department. Hayes appointed him First Assistant Postmaster General, a post he held from 1877 until his resignation in October 1881. During this period, allegations of corruption in the awarding of Star Route mail delivery contracts—lucrative routes in sparsely populated western territories—began to surface. When President James A. Garfield took office on March 4, 1881, he and his Postmaster General, Thomas L. James, ordered an investigation into the Star Route system, where contractors were suspected of making excessive profits through fraud and collusion. Tyner, long familiar with the postal contract system, was assumed by investigators to have known of and tolerated profiteering. James directed Tyner to resign by July 1881, but after Garfield was shot in July and lingered incapacitated, Tyner refused to vacate his office. The investigation also implicated Second Assistant Postmaster General Thomas J. Brady. It emerged that Tyner had appointed his son as superintendent of the Chicago Post Office at a salary of $1,000 per year and then increased his son’s pay to $2,000, a fact that fueled charges of favoritism and misuse of office. After Garfield died on September 19, 1881, and Vice President Chester A. Arthur assumed the presidency, Arthur requested Tyner’s resignation and finally forced him from office on October 17, 1881.

Tyner remained active in postal and legal affairs despite his fall from high executive office. On the evening of June 12, 1882, he was seriously injured when he was thrown from a buggy while riding near Brightwood, suffering a concussion and facial bruising; he was taken into the city for treatment and recovered. He later represented the United States at the International Postal Congress held in Washington, D.C., in 1897, underscoring his continued expertise in postal matters. Within the Post Office Department, he returned to government service as Assistant Attorney General, serving from 1889 to 1893 and again from 1897 to 1903. In this role he provided legal advice and representation for the department at a time when federal regulation of communications and commerce was expanding.

Tyner’s long career ended amid renewed controversy. In April 1903, Postmaster General Henry C. Payne requested his resignation as Assistant Attorney General of the Post Office Department, following allegations of fraud and bribery connected with postal contracts and departmental practices. Tyner was subsequently indicted on charges of fraud and bribery. During the investigation, members of his family removed papers from his office safe, an act that drew public criticism and complicated the prosecution’s case. Tyner was ultimately acquitted, but the circumstances of the trial and the missing documents left lingering questions about his conduct and the integrity of the department he had served for decades. He died on December 5, 1904, closing a career that had spanned state politics, congressional service, and some of the most influential—and contentious—administrative posts in the federal postal system.