To trace up the postal history of the colonies to the glorious epoch of our independence would be to give a history of trade and commerce, science and art. To these do every thing useful and ornamental in the New World owe its existence. It is true the postal department was at the early age of colonial history but a minor consideration. The system was a limited one, and consisted in having post-roads and post-riders. Even here the latter were to be seen “like angels’ visits, few and far between.” We can draw one of these from a picture seen in our boyhood days. It was in the good old State of Pennsylvania, not many miles from the city of Philadelphia, and while trudging on our way to the village school, this living picture presented itself. A tall, gaunt man sat on a tall, gaunt horse; he came riding slowly up the road,—this was not, as now, a fast age: his hair was partly gray, and fell in tow-looking ringlets down and around his long, sinewy neck. Over the horse’s back was swung a large, well-filled pair of saddle-bags. He was the post-rider. He had started from the main post of the county, established in Norristown, to others in directions diverging from the main road. He stopped his horse, and, raising his tall form, resting his feet on a pair of old rusty stirrups, he shouted out, in a voice of mimic thunder, “Look here, Jim: take this letter to your mother, ’mediate; for that is written on the back; and as you pass Mrs. Stroud’s, hand her this newspaper. Do this, Jim, and I’ll give you sixpence next pay-day.” Such was the post.
Connected with this little incident there is a somewhat curious coincidence. Little did the writer think then, while acting as “an incipient post,” he should in after years find himself in a position in the Philadelphia post-office, acting first as a carrier, and then as clerk, and whose early vocations in life were in no manner identified with public men and public institutions. But what will not revulsions in trade, politics, and governments effect! Equally strange, too, that forty years after the little incident of the “old post” he should meet in the same office the son of that same Mrs. Stroud mentioned above, acting in a similar capacity. Truly may it be said that “coming events cast their shadows before us on our boyhood’s wayward path.” But this is a digression.
Expresses and regular messengers were employed by the colonists, and horses were kept in constant readiness to start on a moment’s notice with letters or packets, for the government as well as individuals. There was no established postal system but that which the exigencies of the times created. The post-riders, or rather government messengers, ran frequent risks. Captain Hutchinson started July 4, 1665, sent by the Governor of Massachusetts with letters constituting him a commissioner to treat with the Narragansetts. The “letter system” failed to conciliate the tribe, as they had openly declared for Philip; and here we have another illustration of the fact that in cases of war and rebellion the “sword is mightier than the pen.” The colonial forces marched into their country and compelled them to sign a treaty, which, however, was only considered binding as long as the forces sent against them were present.
In 1676, however, the colonial court established a post-office in Boston, appointing John Heyward postmaster. Heyward followed the system as established in England, and placed posts and made routes to the extent of the commercial interest of the State. This gave general satisfaction to those who were interested in this mode of communicating with men connected with them in trade, as also to others who had friends and relations scattered throughout what was then a thinly-populated State.
In the year 1700, Col. J. Hamilton, of New Jersey, and son of Governor Andrew Hamilton, first devised the post-office scheme for British America, for which he obtained a patent and the profits accruing. Afterwards he sold it to the crown, and a member of Parliament was appointed for the whole, with a right to have his substitute reside in New York. The statute of Anne, in 1716, placed the postal department under the immediate control of the crown.
The first regular post-office established in the colonies by Parliament was in 1710. By its provisions a general post-office was established in North America and the West Indies, or any other of her majesty’s dominions, or in any country or kingdom beyond the seas, and “at which office all returns and answers may be likewise received. For the better managing, ordering, collecting, and improving the revenue, and also for the better computing and setting the rates of letters according to distance, a chief office is established in Edinburgh, one in Dublin, one at New York, and other chief offices in convenient places in her majesty’s colonies of America, and one in the islands of the West Indies, called the ‘Leeward Islands.’”
That our readers may form some idea of the limited use of a post-office at that period, it is only necessary to state the fact that in 1708 New York contained but one thousand houses, most of them substantially built. The great Trinity Church, so called then, was erected in 1695.[24] A library was established there in 1700, and the post-office, as stated above, in 1710. The post-horse system, such as was pursued in England, continued, nor was it until 1732 that the first stage-route to Philadelphia was established: stages also departed for Boston monthly, taking a fortnight on the route.
The following announcement is taken from the “Philadelphia Weekly Mercury,” dated November 30, 1752:—
“On Monday next the Northern post sets out from New York, in order to perform his stage but once a fortnight during the winter quarter; the Southern post changes also, which will cause this paper to come out on Tuesdays during that time. The colds which have infested the Northern colonies have been also troublesome here; few families have escaped the same; several have been carried off by the cold, among whom was David Brintnall, in the seventy-seventh year of his age. He was the first man that had a brick house in the city of Philadelphia, and was much esteemed for his just and upright dealing. There goes a report here that the Lord Baltimore and his lady are arrived in Maryland, but, the Southern post being not yet come in, the said report wants confirmation.”