Postmaster                                                  

Samuel McKinstry                                              
Samuel McConkey                                             
John Laird                                                          
David Craig                                                        
Robert Throckmorten                                         
William J. Bowne                                               
Peter C. Vanderhoef                                           
Cyrus Bruen                                                       
William Lloyd Jr.                                                 
Orrin Pharo                                                        
William V. Ward                                                 
James S. Yard                                                   
Jacob O. Lawrence                                            
Joseph H. Rosell                                                
Charles Fleming                                                 
Edwin F. Applegate                                            
Martin L. Farrington                                            
James Errickson                                                
John T. Rosell                                                   
Neafie Johnson                                                  
James W. Danser                                              
Edgar I. Vanderveer                                           
Joseph Atkinson                                                
Charles H. Wilbur                                               
John B. Johnson Sr.                                           
John B. Johnson Jr.                                            
Vernon Statesir                                                 
Thomas Mahar
Lenard J. Conway                                               
Vincent Citarella                                                 
Joseph Saouter                                                
Lawrence J. Lynch                                            
Crayson W. Cheung
Leonard M. Oaks Jr.                                          
Appointed

January 1, 1795
April 1, 1795
April 1798
July 1798
October 1, 1805
July 1, 1817
June 26, 1825
December 15, 1827
March 3, 1835
November 15, 1849
June 7, 1853
September 25, 1855
July 23, 1860
March 26, 1861
July 23, 1870
June 18, 1874
March 3, 1883
1887
1892
1896
1900
May 7, 1909
June 30, 1913
October 1919
February 28,1920
March 1, 1934
July 1, 1955

April 4, 1968
April 13, 1985
November 18, 1989
April 24, 1999
July 9, 2005
August 30, 2008
Freehold Post Office

The  history of the post office in Freehold dates back to January 1795, when the village was named Monmouth Courthouse. The name was officially changed to Freehold on January 1, 1801.

The  first  postmaster  was  Samuel McKinstry  who took office January 1, 1795, serving only three months. He was succeeded by Samuel McConkey on April 1 of the same year.

There  are  no  records of post office buildings previous to 1861, when, under Joseph H. Rosell, the post  office  was  located  in  the  Rosell  building,  then known as the Deedmeyer & Johnson cigar store.  Since  then  the  store,  at  4 East Main Street, has been known as the Patten Cigar Store, then Barkalow & Litchfield, and Esquire News & Smoke Shop, as it remains today.

In  1873,  under  Postmaster  Charles T. Fleming,  the office was located on the north side of West Main  Street,  near  the former Newberry 5&10, now Harris Pharmacy, where a satellite of the main office was once located.

In 1874, the post office was moved to the store known as S. Rosegarden's at 7 and 9 South Street and in 1876, to the site of a newly constructed post office building on Court Street.

That  facility  was constructed by Joseph T. Laird on property purchased from Dr. John P. Conover. Lumber from an old barn on the rear of the property was used in the construction.

Col. Edwin F. Applegate was then postmaster  and the Monmouth Inquirer, published by a descen- dant of  Maxcy Applegate occupied quarters in the rear of the building. This structure was replaced in  the summer of 1901 by another which was succeeded by still another near the same location in 1925 before moving to a new facility at 50 East Main Street in 1935.

The  cornerstone  for this building was set in 1934 at a time when U.S. Postmaster General James A.  Farley  was  supervising  similarly  styled  post  offices  being  built  all  over  the country under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project.

During  the  1950s,  due  to  accelerated  growth in the area, conditions in the Freehold Post Office became  intolerably  crowded  and  more  up-to-date  facilities  were  started in 1957, resulting in a sizeable extension to the building with complete modernization by 1962.

The  Freehold  facility  once  served  a large portion of what is known today as Western Monmouth County, but it cut back as post offices were established in outlying municipalities.

When  Walter S. Briggs  retired  in  1961 after 42 years, he marveled at the postal service's growth during  his  tenure.  He  was  employed  first  as a temporary clerk for four months, then became a regular  substitute. After  two  years  he  was  appointed to the position of clerk until 1949 when he was named superintendent of mails.

When  Briggs started in 1919, there were three carriers for the whole town and the mailmen did not make  deliveries  in  the  Texas  and Peach Orchard sections. Many of the town's streets were not built-up.

The  same  year, there were six rural routes laid out for horse and wagon. The area for mail delivery decreased when new post offices were established in Colts Neck and Marlboro.

Prior to rural delivery by the Freehold Post Office, three post offices operated in sections of what is now  Freehold Township.  They  were  housed  in  parts  of  other  businesses: in  West  Freehold, established June 19, 1868,  at the Joseph Leander Jewell Wheelwright Shop; on October 13, 1874, at  what  became  the  Herman  Shteir  Country  Store,  Smithburg;  and  on March 1, 1892, at the Horatio Clayton country store, known as Clayton's Corner, at Elton.

Mail  would  be  picked up at the Freehold facility or railroad station and brought to the local stores and  folks  living in the vicinity would have to pick up their mail there. When these post offices were closed is not known, probably when the rural routes were established.

Another  change  that  Briggs  noted  in  1961  was  the increased  use  of  trucks for mail delivery. Formerly,  all  mail  was  dispatched to trains and railway post offices. Except for the long run from New  York  to  Chicago,  Pittsburgh,  and  points west, trains were rapidly losing out to automotive transportation in the mail delivery.

In  June  1991,  the  U.S.  Postal Service  closed  the doors of the downtown post office at 50 East Main  Street  and  moved  to its new headquarters, a $4.5 million building, about two miles west at 200 Village Center Drive, off Route 537 in Freehold Township, and opened the satellite office in the Harris  Pharmacy,  which closed  in  1997  when  the  pharmacy  was  sold.  In  1997,  the  USPS contracted  with  the  new  owners  of  the  former  Murray's  Office  Supply building on Main Street to  operate  a  postal  unit  in  their building. This contract office closed in 2002 because the owner "could  no  longer afford to keep the post office properly functioning."  Freehold Boro's postal needs are now  served  from a "temporary post office" trailer located in the parking lot on Lafayette Street.

Today,  in  2006,  the  Freehold  Post  Office has 41 city routes serving 16,218 addresses, 13 rural routes serving 5,451 addresses and has 125 employees.

The  former  post  office  building  has now been purchased by Monmouth County and renamed the Monmouth  County  Veteran's  Memorial Building and houses the  offices  of the Sheriff  as well as the county Department of Consumer Affairs.

A historic mural of Molly Pitcher  which  was painted in 1936 on the west wall of the public lobby of the former post office was first moved to the new facility. However, through the efforts of Monmouth County  Clerk  Jane  Clayton  and  Robert  N.  Ferrell,  former  executive  director of the Monmouth County  Historical  Commission,  Rep.  Christopher Smith and Postmaster Saouter, the mural now hangs  in  the  Monmouth  County  Library  headquarters, Symmes Road, in Manalapan Township. The reason for its move to the library is that it is visible to more residents and visitors to the area.

The painting was executed by Gerald Foster of Westfield who had won the commission as a result of a Section of Fine Arts competition, a segment of the WPA under President Roosevelt's National Recovery Act (NRA)  which  aimed  at  putting  people  to  work  and  lifting  the  country out of the Depression.

The information  for  the  history  of the Freehold Post Office was primarily copied from the book Freehold Township The First 300 Years by Jeannette Blair, published in 1993. This excellent book is available for purchase through the Monmouth County Historical Association.