Richard Bache

Richard Bache (September 12, 1737 – April 17, 1811), born in Settle, West Riding of Yorkshire, England, immigrated to Philadelphia, in the colony of Pennsylvania, where he was a businessman, a marine insurance underwriter, and later served as Postmaster-General of the American Post Office. He also was the son-in-law of Benjamin Franklin. Early life Bache was born on September 12, 1737, in Settle, West Riding of Yorkshire, the youngest child of William Bache, a tax collector, and Mary (née Blechynden) Bache, who were married around 1720. His older brother was Theophylact Bache, who married Ann Dorothea Barclay (a daughter of Andrew Barclay and Helena (née Roosevelt) Barclay). In 1751, his elder brother Theophylact arrived in New York City, where he was taken under the wing of Paul Richard, a successful merchant and former mayor, whose wife was a Bache relative. Career Bache immigrated as a young man in 1760 to New York to join his brother Theophylact in a dry goods and marine insurance business. After a couple of years, he went to Philadelphia, where he prospered for several years. He was among nearly 30 young men who in October 1766 met at the city's London Coffee House to found the Gloucester Fox Hunting Club (GFHC), the first in America, to take up a pursuit closely associated with becoming "true Englishmen." In 1767, Bache suffered financial problems when debts contracted by him were repudiated by his London associate, Edward Green.