Gardiner Greene Hubbard - Our Post Office - Part 1

Introduction

This article by Gardiner Greene Hubbard provides a comprehensive overview of the history and management of postal services in America and Britain. It traces the evolution of postal services from ancient times to the establishment of the post office in America, which grew rapidly to become the largest in the world. The article also discusses the introduction of cheap postage and its impact on the postal service’s revenues and expenditures. It highlights the role of Benjamin Franklin in improving the post office and the development of rates of postage and the transmission of newspapers. The article examines the different methods used to transport the mail, including the carrier system and transportation by rail, and the establishment of post-roads. It discusses the challenges faced by the US postal service in remaining self-supporting, including the carriage of express parcels, and proposes a classification and distribution system for mail to reduce costs and improve self-sufficiency. The article also explores the history and growth of money orders and the potential union of the telegraph and the post office. The article concludes with a list of points highlighting the purpose and management of the US post office, including its role in conveying intelligence and letters, the classification of mail matter, and the transportation of express parcels.

In the article, several recommendations were offered to improve the postal service in the United States, including:

The adoption of a prepaid postage system based on weight to increase revenue and simplify accounting.
A classification and distribution system for mail that would reduce costs and make the postal service self-sufficient.
The establishment of post-roads and the prescription of compensation paid to rail companies for transporting mail.
The potential union of the telegraph and the post office.

Our Post-Office
By Gardiner G. Hubbard
January 1875

IN 2 Chronicles xxx. 6, we read that “ the posts went with the letters from the king and his princes throughout all Israel.” We do not know how early a regular system of posts was established, but it must have been coeval with the foundation of centralized governments. Simple at first, — the messenger swift of foot bearing the commands of the sovereign to distant parts of his dominion, — it grew and widened with the growth of empire. Formed for the convenience of kings, the people had no share in its privileges, though they bore the tax.

It was not until the fifteenth century, when, as a consequence of the invention of printing, civilization and education spread rapidly among all classes, that the people themselves began to feel the need of a postal service and to make use of it. Royal post-riders had been maintained in Europe for several centuries; about two hundred years ago they began to carry travelers for hire, and at a later date letters. All correspondence was subject to the inspection of the king, and private parties were forbidden to carry letters for hire lest the king should lose this privilege. The post from this and other causes has always been a monopoly controlled by the sovereigns, sometimes farmed out to private parties or given to favorites.

The earliest regular post appears to have been established by the Counts of Thurn and Taxis, who held a monopoly of the postal service over different parts of Germany and Italy from the sixteenth century down to our own time. In Great Britain the exclusive control of the post was frequently given to princes of the royal family, who regarded it as a source of revenue, while the accommodation of the people was to them a matter of but small importance. Private posts were frequently established, but were suppressed as soon as they became profitable. Mail-coaches were introduced in 1784, and from that time the post-office of Great Britain dates its importance; before the establishment of coaches, ten days were required to send a letter from London to Edinburgh and receive an answer, “ weather and highwaymen permitting.” So small was the correspondence that the rider frequently left London with only five or six letters in his bag for Edinburgh.

In America the wants and interests of the people have been the sole objects that have been considered in the administration of the post-office. A simple arrangement among neighbors for their mutual convenience has grown until our post-office has become the largest in the world. Letters arriving from Europe were deposited in some coffeehouse at the port of landing, and from thence carried by the nearest neighbor to those to whom they were addressed. In the records of the General Court of Massachusetts for 1639, ” It is ordered that notice be given that Richard Fairbanks his house in Boston is the place appointed for all letters which are brought beyond the seas, or are to be sent thither, to be left with him; and he is to take care that they are to be delivered or sent according to the directions; and he is allowed for every letter a penny, and must answer all miscarriages through his own neglect in this kind. ” The first step towards a postal service was made in Virginia, by the colonial law of 1657, which required “ every planter to provide a messenger to convey the dispatches, as they arrived, to the next plantation; and so on, on pain of forfeiting a hogshead of tobacco for default.” The government of New York in 1672 established “a post to goe monthly from New York to Boston,” advertising “ those that bee disposed to send letters, to bring them to the secretary’s office, where in a lockt box, they shall be preserved till the messenger calls for them, all persons paying the post before the bagg is sealed up.” In 1692 the control of the postoffice was assumed by the home government, and the office of Postmaster General for America was created. The rates of postage were established at nine cents for eighty miles, or under; from New York to Philadelphia eighteen cents, to Virginia twenty-four cents.

In 1710 the postal service of the British empire was consolidated into one establishment; the chief offices of Edinburgh, Dublin, and New York were reorganized. A Postmaster-General for the Colonies was appointed by the crown, and authorized “ to keep his chief letter office in New York, and other chief offices at some convenient place or places in other of his Majesty’s provinces or colonies of America,” and also to appoint all deputy postmasters. The communication between the different colonies was very infrequent and irregular. Six weeks was the ordinary time required for receiving an answer to a letter sent from Philadelphia to Boston. Benjamin Franklin was the first to effect any great improvements in the system. For over forty years he was connected with the post-office department, commencing with his appointment as postmaster of Philadelphia in 1737. He published the appointment in his own newspaper in these words: “ Notice is hereby given that the post-office of Philadelphia is now kept at B. Franklin’s in Market Street, and that Henry Pratt is appointed riding-postmaster for all stages between Philadelphia and Newport in Virginia, who sets out about the beginning of each month and returns in twenty-four days, by whom gentlemen, merchants, and others may have their letters carefully conveyed.” In 1753 Mr. Franklin was appointed by the home government Postmaster General for America, with a salary of £300 a year, provided the office yielded the requisite profit. In 1760 he startled the people by running a mail – wagon from Philadelphia to Boston, leaving each place Monday evening, and arriving on Saturday evening. In 1774 he was removed by George III., but reappointed by the Continental Congress the next year. Before his appointment, ” the American post-office had never paid anything to that of Great Britain. In the first four years thereafter the office became £900 in debt, but it soon began to improve, and before I was displaced by a freak of the ministers, I had brought it to yield three times as much clear revenue to the crown as the post-office of Ireland. Since that imprudent transaction they have received from it not one farthing.” The control of the Post-Office Department was transferred by the articles of confederation to Congress, which gave it “the exclusive right to establish and regulate post-offices.” Among the earliest questions discussed in the Continental Congress, as of vital importance to the country, was the means of disseminating information in regard to the progress of the Revolution.

In May, 1775, a committee of six was appointed, with Benjamin Franklin chairman, “ to consider the best means of establishing posts for conveying intelligence and letters throughout this continent.” This committee reported a plan for the establishment of a PostOffice Department, with “ a line of posts to be appointed under the direction of the Postmaster-General, from Falmouth, Maine, to Savannah. Georgia, with as many cross posts as he shall think fit ; ” the Postmaster-General to receive a salary of $1000, and $340 for a secretary, with power to appoint as many deputies and at such places as he should think proper; and the deputies to be paid by commissions on their collections. It was further provided, “ that if the necessary expenses of this establishment should exceed the product of it, the deficiency shall be made good by the United Colonies and paid to the

Postmaster-General by the Continental Treasurers.” Congress unanimously elected “Benjamin Franklin, Esq., Postmaster-General for one year, and until another is appointed by a future Congress.” The franking privilege was then enjoyed by most officials, and in franking letters, instead of writing “ Free, B. Franklin,” as he had formerly done, he wrote “ B. free Franklin. At a later period in the same year, a committee of three was appointed “ to devise means of having expresses [persons of character] posted along the roads at different distances for the purpose of conveying early and frequent intelligence.” In 1777 a committee was appointed to revise “the regulations of the Post-Office Department, and report a plan for carrying it on so as to render the conveyance of intelligence more expeditious and certain.”

In 1782 an ordinance was passed regulating the post-office, and the first Congress of the United States in 1789 enacted that the “regulations of the post-office should be the same as under the resolutions and ordinances of the late Congress.” These were continued in force by successive Acts of Congress nearly twenty years. The ordinance begins with the following preamble: “Whereas the communication of intelligence with regularity and dispatch, from one part to another of these United States, is essentially requisite to the safety as well as the commercial interests thereof,” and the Congress being “ vested with the sole and exclusive right and power of establishing and regulating post-offices throughout the United States,” therefore resolved “ that the Postmaster-General and his agents, and no other person, shall have the receiving, taking up, ordering, and dispatching, sending post, or with speed conveying or delivering of any letters, packets, or other dispatches from any place within the United States for hire ” — postage to be paid in pennyweights and grains of silver according to the distance of transmission, the rates to be doubled for doubled letters, and packets weighing an ounce to be charged equal to four single letters.

The articles of the confederation proving inefficient and inadequate to the administration of the affairs of a nation, the constitution was adopted. The eighth section provides that Congress shall have the power ” to establish post-offices and post-roads,” and ” to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers.”

The control of Congress over the post-office was enlarged, and it was authorized to establish ” post-roads ” as well as post-offices, and thus the national government obtained full and absolute command of the postal service. The rates of postage during the Revolution were raised several times as the Continental currency depreciated in value, but were subsequently reduced and made payable in specie. In 1792 the rates were revised and established at six cents for distances not over thirty miles, increasing with the distance of transmission to twenty-five cents for all distances over four hundred and fifty miles. With a few unimportant changes these rates were maintained for more than fifty years. No provision was made for postage on newspapers in the early acts. The postmaster had not only the privilege of sending his own papers through the mail free, but the more valuable right of excluding all others from the mail. It naturally followed from this that the publication of newspapers fell almost exclusively into the hands of postmasters. On the appointment of a new postmaster the newspaper was generally transferred with the office, or after a vain struggle for life it was discontinued. Mr. Brocker was appointed postmaster of Boston in 1719; the former postmaster, feeling himself aggrieved by his removal, refused to sell out the News Letter, when Mr. Brocker started the Boston Gazette, and in his prospectus says he published it at the request of several “ who have been prevented from having their newspapers sent them by post, since Mr. Campbell was removed from being postmaster.” Mr. Franklin started a newspaper in Philadelphia about 1730, but was obliged to bribe the post-rider to carry his paper and deliver his exchanges. “ I thought,” he says, “ so meanly of the practice of excluding rivals’ papers from the mail, that when I came into his situation I took care never to imitate it; ” and on his appointment as Postmaster General he required the riders to take all papers offered. In 1782 a law was passed by which the postmaster was authorized “ to license every post-rider to carry newspapers at such moderate rates as he shall establish.” In 1790, Samuel Osgood, Postmaster-General, reported to Congress that ” newspapers, which have hitherto passed free of postage, circulate extensively through the post-office, and one or two cents on them would probably amount to as much as the expenses of transporting the mail.” In consequence of this report it was provided in 1792, that ” newspapers shall be carried in a separate bag from letters, and charged one cent for one hundred miles, and one and a half cents for greater distances.” Great difficulty was experienced in making change for postage: to remedy this difficulty, he proposed to have pieces of money coined to correspond with the postage, or to make the rates in each State conformable to the currency thereof.

There was no uniform plan for the transmission of the mails. On some routes they were transported by contract with stage proprietors. On others, as between Richmond and Staunton in 1787, the ” exclusive privilege was granted for carrying letters and packets for hire at the postage. ” In 1792 the PostmasterGeneral was authorized to contract for a term not exceeding eight years, for the purpose of extending the line of posts to places not then supplied with mails, ” and such roads shall be post-roads.” In 1800 the mail was carried between Philadelphia and Baltimore in a line of stages established by the Postmaster General at the expense of the United States. In 1802, in answer to inquiries of the Senate into the expediency of starting a line of mail-coaches between Boston and New Orleans, the PostmasterGeneral replied, that “ it was expedient to do so, and that it would soon pay; that the actual sum expended in purchase of coaches, horses, and other requirements necessary for the establishment of the line between Philadelphia and Baltimore was $10,567, and that the expense of equipping a line for the whole distance would at the same rate be $100,000. In 1786 the State of New Jersey, taking advantage of its situation between New York and Philadelphia, taxed travelers passing through the State, a custom which has continued until within a few years. The Postmaster-General in that year reports that “ citizens of the United States have to purchase permission to travel on the highway of New Jersey. This tax is an unwarrantable imposition, but was the voluntary effect of the two lines of coaches then running, which designed thereby to secure a monopoly for carrying mails and passengers.” About 1810 the running time between Portland and Savannah was reduced from forty to twenty – seven days, between Philadelphia and Nashville from forty-four to thirty days, between New York and Canandaigua from twenty to twelve days.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

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