Neighbors were grumpy. Postman Daniel W. Washington went on vacation and the post office assigned a substitute carrier to deliver mail in the Northside neighborhoods of Richmond. The substitute wasn’t mean or surly, but the neighborhoods had become attuned to a familiar sound, a daily distinct melody from their regular postman that alerted them their mail had arrived…a whistle. Much to their chagrin, the substitute didn’t use a whistle. So accustomed were the neighborhoods to this harmonious tradition, that the Richmond Times-Dispatch wrote a 1949 article about the beloved postman.
Daniel Webster Washington was born on November 25, 1880, to Van and Virginia (Green) Washington in Richmond. Both are buried at East End. Mr. Washington married Emma J. Randolph, a schoolteacher, in 1907, and they lived a good portion of their lives in Northside (an area that includes the neighborhoods of Ginter Park, Bellevue, and Laburnum Park). From the available census records, they seem to have had only one child, James R. Washington, born in 1923.
Mr. Washington was a postman all his life until, according to the article, he retired around age 70. He passed away on February 21, 1962. Mrs. Washington preceded him in death by five years and is buried at Evergreen. —Melissa Pocock
Notes: Napoleon's mother worked as a cook in the household of the Rev. James K. Hazen, a Presbyterian minister from Massachusetts. She, Napoleon, and his brother Elijah were living with Hazen's family in 1880.
