John Allen Borgman

John Allen Borgman (December 6, 1866 - January 15, 1937) was a United States Postmaster of Jonesboro, Arkansas in the early 1900's. John was born in Attica, Indiana and was the son of Francis John Borgman and Frances Jane Beauchamp and had a twin brother named George M., who died of an illness at the age of eighteen. His father had served in the Union Army during the American Civil War, but since he deserted in 1862 from his West Virginia regiment he re-enlisted in Indiana under an assumed name, John Frank Dierker. Because of this, John's name during his early years was listed as Dierker until he was no longer worried of arrest.

He and his father moved out to Arkansas while endeavoring in the lumber trade. John Borgman moved to Jonesboro in 1906. He married a woman from Tennessee, Mary Owen Harris, the daughter of Thomas H. Harris, a Confederate veteran. They had two children——Herman Francis and Lola——before his wife and daughter came down with tuberculosis. His wife died of the illness, and a year later he married her younger sister Ida Harris.

His son Herman, for whom Herman, Arkansas is named after, related a story published by The Jonesboro Sun in its Off The Beaten Path column. "The Frisco used to have a water tank at the north end of the trestle across Big Bayou. They pumped their water out of the bayou. The tank fell down across the track and my father... flagged down the northbound fast train (106) and prevented it running into the tank on the track."

John was very active in politics, and it was his being a Republican which led to his appointment as postmaster. Borgman was appointed acting postmaster from July 1, 1922 replacing postmaster Chrales B. Gregg and served as postmaster from February 14, 1923 to July 1, 1933. He served under three presidents Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. He was a Republican delegate at the Arkansas Republican State Convention in Littlerock on May 3, 1928 and a delegate at the Republican National Convention in Chicago on June 14, 1932.

Borgman was also a U. S. Marshal. His only surviving child Herman Borgman became a postal employee and moved to St. Louis, Missouri in 1920.

Borgman died at the age of seventy on at 2:20 PM on January 15, 1937 at his home in Bay, Arkansas. His funeral was held on January 16 at the Gregg Funeral Home and he was buried in Oaklawn Cemetery.

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