An advertisement was put in the Montreal papers in 1797 on the 18th of June. “A mail for the upper countries, comprehending Niagara and Detroit will be closed at the office on May 30th at 4 o’clock in the evening to be forwarded from Montreal by the annual winter express on Thursday, 3d February next.” In 1809 an advertisement of this year states, “A passenger may go from Boston to Montreal, a distance of 312 miles, in four days and a half. This line is furnished with the new and convenient stages, good horses and careful drivers.” But the irregularity and slowness of the service in Canada itself called forth loud protests from many merchants who were forced to employ private runners to carry their mail. In 1811 Mr. George Heriot, then Post-Master General, investigated these complaints and his report is descriptive of local conditions:—“The mail is carried from New Brunswick and vice versa by two couriers, one setting out from Quebec and the other from Fredericton once a month in winter and once a fortnight in summer. The distance is 361 miles; the cost of conveying the mails £240. There is one courier once a week between Fredericton and St. John, N.B., eighty-two miles at a cost of £91.5s. There are two packets weekly across the Bay of Fundy between St. John and Digby, 36½ miles at £350. There is one courier twice a week between Digby and Annapolis, twenty miles, and one courier between Annapolis and Halifax once a week, 133½ miles. From the commencement of the present year a communication by post has been opened from Montreal to Kingston. The courier goes once a fortnight and has a salary of £100. A post to York is proposed for six months or during the close of navigation. The post between Quebec and Montreal is despatched twice a week from each of those towns. Eight pence is charged for postage on a single letter from Quebec to Montreal. There are on the road between Quebec and Montreal about twenty-seven persons whose houses are seven or eight miles distant from each other and who keep four or five horses each, not of the best description, and small vehicles with two wheels of a homely and rude construction hung upon bands of leather or thongs of unmanufactured bull’s hide by way of springs. They will with much difficulty contain two persons in front of which a man or boy is placed to guide the horse. The rate at which they go when the roads are favourable is not much more than six miles an hour. The roads are generally in a very bad state as no proper measures are taken for their repair.”

The mail system of that time was a part of the English postal service and the province had no voice in the matter. About 1815-1816 according to Borthwick, “The Montreal postoffice was a room about twelve feet square in St. Sulpice Street near St. Paul. There were no letter boxes; it was all ‘general delivery’ in its crudest form. The few letters laid scattered on a table and had all to be looked at at each application at the door. Very few letters came or went. The mail to Upper Canada was weekly and the seven days’ collection could be contained in one small mailbag. That to Quebec was oftener and larger. The English mail carried in sailing vessels arrived during the summer at periods of from a month and a half to three months apart. In winter it came by New York and was longer on the way. Postage was very dear, about 9d. to Quebec and 5d. to St. Johns, 1s. 6d. to western parts of Canada and 1s. 6d. to lower provinces.

“In 1820 there appeared in the various newspapers an official advertisement signed by a member of the English postal service giving a list of reduced rates between Canada and many foreign countries. The postage on a letter to the various countries of western Europe varying from 3s. 10d. to 4s. 4d. There were no money letters for indeed there was no money in the form convenient for sending thus. A recipient of a letter paid all the postage except in cases when it crossed the United States boundary, when the sender paid as far as the line. There was much private mail carrying, both for pay and free. Anyone traveling to the United States or Upper Canada was expected to fill half his baggage with letters and various articles to persons there.” About 1840 the postoffice at Montreal was at the southwest corner of St. James street and St. Lambert’s Hill.

Montreal and Quebec geographically being some hundreds of miles nearer European ports than New York and Boston, Canadians began on the success of the steam navigation to desire to handle their own mails directly, and on the foundation of the Allan Line in 1856 this was put to practice by fortnightly trips until 1859. In 1859 the Allan Line contracted for a weekly mail to and from Montreal and Quebec in the summer and Portland, Maine, in the winter. Thus began the ocean mail service to us, now so largely developed. The opening of the railway era also assisted the postal facilities. The next location of the postoffice at Montreal was the building constructed in Place d’Armes on the site of the present Banque Provinciale. It was followed by a new location on the southwest corner of St. Francois Xavier and St. James streets, to be followed in 1876 by the present imposing edifice on the corner of St. Francois Xavier and St. James streets, with the equally large annex erected later and situated on Craig and St. Francois Xavier streets. The Montreal postoffice is of proportionate size and efficiency to that of any of the great cities of the world.

The site of the present postoffice is historic and the following tablet has been recently placed to explain the four artistic bas reliefs on the exterior which commemorate it.

JOHN FLAXMAN

Author of these bas reliefs and Greatest of British Sculptors was born at York, England, July 6th, 1755. Designed the classical groups on wedgewood-ware. Made a great reputation in Italy. Was the first professor of sculpture at the Royal Academy. Executed the monuments of Burns, Kemble, Mansfield and Paoli in Westminster Abbey, Sir Joshua Reynolds in St. Paul’s, and illustrations of ancient Greek poets. He was elected a Royal Academician in 1800, and died December the 7th, 1826.

These bas reliefs were part of the facade of the building erected on this site for the Bank of Montreal in 1821; later on occupied by La Banque du Peuple from 1846 until 1873 and also of that now occupied by the General Post Office since 1876.

The subjects of the bas reliefs are:—

Agriculture,Manufacturers,
Arts,Commerce.