26th of July: On this day in 1775 that the Continental Congress established the Postal System. In the early days of colonial America, there was no centralized system for transporting correspondence — merchants or slaves carried letters between towns, and taverns or inns collected overseas mail. Early American settlements were coastal and relatively isolated from each other. Most mail was transatlantic, going from colonists to friends or relatives back in Europe. Mail that needed to be transported within the colonies was carried by postal riders, who rode alone through dense wilderness, marking the way by slashing marks into trees with axes. In 1707, the British Crown officially took over the North American postal system, and appointed a series of postmasters general. One of these was Benjamin Franklin, who worked hard to make the system more organized and efficient. He went on a 1,600-mile journey to inspect post offices. He established a weekly mail wagon between Philadelphia and Boston. Mail was delivered by employees on horseback, and Franklin had them ride in shifts and continue through the night, by lantern light, so that mail took only half as long to reach its destination as it had before. He coordinated postal routes all the way from Maine to Florida, and transatlantic mail moved on a schedule. Under his leadership, the postal system finally made a profit. In January of 1774, Franklin was fired from his post for being sympathetic to the revolutionary cause. By that point, revolutionaries had set up alternative systems to deliver mail without the Crowns knowledge. These systems were invaluable for secret correspondence, but also as a way to publicize revolutionary materials to a wider audience — otherwise, when the revolutionaries published anti-British newspapers and pamphlets, the Crown post simply refused to deliver them. Americans supported the alternative mail systems as one more way to boycott England — the Crown mail service came to be seen as a form of taxation. Soon, this alternative system became the more popular and profitable of the two. A British surveyor-general wrote: It is next to impossible to put a stop to this practice in the present universal opposition to every thing connected with Great Britain. Were any Deputy Post Master to do his duty, and make a stir in such matter, he would draw on himself the odium of his neighbours and be markd as the friend of Slavery and oppression and a declard enemy to America. In May of 1775, the Second Continental Congress formed a committee to determine the best way of organizing this new alternative system. The six committee members, including Franklin and Samuel Adams, spent two months deliberating, and delivered a report on July 25th. The following day — on this day in 1775 — it was approved by the Congress, and the Postal System was established. Franklin was unanimously elected as postmaster general, with an annual salary of $1,000. In 1782, a man named Ebenezer Hazard was named as the United States postmaster general. In a letter to a friend, he wrote: My own Attention has been so constantly necessary that I have not had time for proper Relaxation; & in three years past have not been to the Distance of ten miles from this City. I once hired a Clerk, but found my Salary was not equal to that Expence in addition to the support of my Family, & was obliged to dismiss him. By 1789, there were about 4 million people living in the new United States, using 75 post offices and 2,400 miles of postal roads. I have sought out old post roads in whatever area I have traveled in the original colonies. It is often the case they have not changed all to much. They wind across the state from city to city, often main streets, many forgotten and secondary to the highways that now are used. Along them has our history, a few old houses, some old ruins not yet torn down complelty by time, and strip malls. For there is one thing that defines America and that is strip malls. We love to shop and eat. While many countries have established the ruins of their country as tourist attractions and concentrate on beautifying their old roads to draw more attention and get people aware of their proud history, Americans ignore our ruins, let weeds take them, and we prefer strip malls, many eateries along the thorough fair and places to buy stuff. I know many Americans that can not go one day without buying something. And if they dont they still have to drive somewhere. We do not like to stay put. And our history is now a pile of stones in the brush on an old post road.
Posted on: Sat, 26 Jul 2014 10:25:52 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015