James Mathers - Doorkeeper of The Senate

Doorkeeper of The Senate

The Congress had moved in the 1780s from one major city to another, ending up in New York by 1785. In New York, the Continental Congress elevated Mathers to the post of principal Doorkeeper. He assumed those duties on May 15, 1788, just as the Congress was about to go out of existence. Upon ratification of the United States Constitution in June 1788, Mathers and the handful of other congressional staff devoted their attention to helping with the transition into new Congressional quarters on lower Manhattan's Wall Street.

The Senate of the first Congress, meeting in the second-floor chamber of the newly refurbished and renamed Federal Hall, achieved a quorum for business on April 6, 1789. As one of their very first orders of business, members elected Mathers to be their doorkeeper. This was a particularly important post for a legislature that intended to conduct all its sessions in secret, a closed-door policy that copied the practice of both the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Only the House of Representatives, meeting on the floor below (the "lower house") welcomed visitors to its sessions.

On the Senate's second day in session, members elected as their secretary Samuel Otis, an ally of Vice President John Adams. Close in age, Mathers and Otis differed greatly in background and education. A first generation American, Mathers lacked Otis' educational opportunities and financial backing. Otis had earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from Harvard College more than a quarter-century earlier. Prior to the Revolution, as Mathers was establishing himself in a new land, Otis flourished as a Boston merchant and state legislator. As the Senate's principal officers, Mathers and Otis took on duties similar to those of the Continental Congress' doorkeeper and secretary. As Otis and his assistants were keeping the financial accounts and legislative records, Mathers and his one aide tended the chamber door, maintained the Senate's two horses, and purchased the firewood. While the Senate considered its secretary a year-round official, its doorkeeper performed most of his duties during the approximately six months each year that the Senate was in session. Consequently Otis received an annual salary of $1,500, while Mathers received three dollars for each day on the job. (At that time, senators were also paid for each day of actual attendance at a rate of six dollars per day.)

Congress moved to Philadelphia, where the House and Senate took up temporary quarters in the newly renamed Congress Hall; Doorkeeper Mathers' security functions expanded significantly during the Senate's residence there. In 1794, after receiving much unwelcome criticism for its closed-session policy, the Senate decided to open its legislative proceedings as soon as a gallery could be constructed. When that gallery opened in December 1795, Mathers assumed responsibility for keeping order among the visitors.