Early Mail Fate Often Proved as Risky as Those Bottle Messages, The Hartford Courant, 1964
Entry/Object ID
AM1994.21.1
Scope and Content
Early Mail Fate Often Proved as Risky as Those Bottle Messages, The Hartford Courant, 1964.
Sending mail in early colonial days was about as fast and certain a means of communication as putting messages in bottles and setting them adrift in the ocean.
From its humble beginnings when letters were entrusted to passers - by and to the saddlebags of the once-in-a-while post riders, the U.S. Postal System has grown into the largest and most dependable public utility in the world.
In the year 1764, the year the Courant was founded, Hartford appointed the first postmaster of whom there is any record: John Walker, However three years later because of irregularities in Walker's accounts, he was put in Hartford's jail.
Benjamin Franklin was considered the father of the American postal system. Political appoints have continued to this day. In 1863 free home delivery of mail began. When Franklin began organizing the early mail system he made so many innovations and improvement that what was a financially floundering business soon began to make a profit. It was one of the few times that the postal system made a profit.
Under Franklin the mail was improved from once-a-week deliveries between cities in summer and once-a- month in winter to three times a week in summer and every week in winter.
The big changes in improved postal service have all come in roughly the last 100 years. The money order system was begun. In 1885 special delivery arrived. In 1896 rural free delivery began. In 1911 the postal savings system was begun. In 1918 air mail began. New invention speeded up the mails. In 1947 airplanes and helicopters, began carrying first class mail on a space available basis.
Parcel post began in 1913. today more than 1 billion packages a year are trundled through the mails. Air Parcel Post began in 1948.
The epitome of automation, at least until the next invention is the automatic postmarking machine installed at Hartford's mail office this year. It automatically cancels mail at the rate of 34,000 letters an hour.
Lexicon
LOC Thesaurus for Graphic Materials
Mail service
Search Terms
Postal Service, Hartford Courant, Airmail, U.S. Post Office, Mail Service History
