Mail Delivery in the 18th Century

When Post Masters received letters, they listed the names in the newspapers of those to whom the letters were addressed. If the letters were not picked up by a specified date, they went to the Dead Letter Office. The names of Cumberland County and Carlisle residents are included in this notice in the September 3, 1761 issue of Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette.

In 1753, Benjamin Franklin, Philadelphia’s Post Master, was appointed the Post Master for all thirteen colonies, and he traveled through Pennsylvania and other states to establish the best routes for post riders. “In the American colonies postal routes were farmed out to contractors who promised to deliver the mail within a certain area for a set length of time. When mail was first delivered to a town, the people would have to come to a central location…to pick up the mail,” and they would have to pay for the letters.¹ The first weekly post was thought to have been established from Carlisle to Philadelphia in May 1757. There is no record of where the mail was deposited when it arrived in Carlisle, but it may have been a tavern.

The first newspaper was published in Carlisle in August 1785, and the September 7, 1785 issue of the Carlisle Gazette and the Western Repository of Knowledge included a "List of Letters received [in Carlisle] from the Post Office in Lancaster by the printers." The names and locations of the individuals to whom the letters were addressed were listed in alphabetical order. The letters were not just for those who lived in and around Carlisle, but to people and the places where they were thought to live. Places like John Buchanan in Shermans Valley; Henry Ferguson, Yellow Breeches; and William Beard, Kishacoquelis. Several were addressed to Harris’s Ferry [later Harrisburg], and one letter was addressed to William McMichael, Juniata River. Many letters were sent in care of another person. For example, a letter for John Jamison was in care of Rev. Robert Cooper, Shippensburg; Andrew Dick in care of John Swiffer near Carlisle; and Nicholas Ellis, cooper, care of Rev. Mr. King. Letters continued to be deposited at the newspaper’s printing office until a post office was opened in Carlisle.

In August 1788, James Bryson, the Post Master of Philadelphia, inserted a notice in The Carlisle Gazette stating that “a post is now established between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, by the road of Lancaster, Yorktown, Carlisle, Shippensburgh, Chambersburgh, Bedford, and Greensburgh.” The post rider will arrive in Pittsburgh “on Tuesday the fifth of next month, and set out on the next day (Wednesday) at 12 o’clock, and continue so to do every other week until the first of November."²

When people needed letters to reach someone quickly, they did not wait for the post, but they employed express riders. In August 1769, Attorney James Wilson was contemplating leaving Reading, Pennsylvania and settling in Carlisle, and he wrote to John Armstrong for advice. Armstrong replied that “Wilest the young man sits on horseback, I must write this line having but this moment got your letter.” After writing his response, Armstrong wrote, “this is all that can be said on this short notice,” because the express rider was waiting to take Armstrong’s letter back to Wilson in Reading.³

On January 21, 1771, Edward Shippen, of Lancaster, wrote a letter to Attorney Jasper Yeates who was attending a session of court in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He said he had just received a letter from Mr. James Tilghman, Esq., which enclosed a letter for Robert McKenzie in Carlisle. Mr. Shippen then engaged an express rider, Christian Zorn, to deliver the letter to McKenzie, but he wrote, “I cannot be answerable for unforeseen accidents.”

The next day Mr. Shippen wrote to Mr. Tilghman to tell him that within two hours of receiving his letter on January 20, the express driver, Christian Zorn, “a careful young man,” had set off for Carlisle with his letter for McKenzie. He wrote:

“As it was very late in the day, and the roads intolerably bad, I imagine the man could not possibly get further last night than to Taffe’s or Harris’s Ferry, over which there is no such thing as passing in Winter when it is very dark; however I hope he will reach the town today before noon, and so have time enough to do his errand, and get back and cross the River again before sunset; otherwise he may be detained by ice a week or two and expenses, which in such a case he is to be allowed or he would not have undertaken the service at this season of the year. Our post always sets off from hence to Philadelphia on Wednesday morning very early, so that I cannot be so full in my answer as you desire; but you may expect to hear from me again by the first opportunity after the return of the express. We are likely to have a deep snow before night.”

It took the express rider three days to make the trip from Lancaster to Carlisle and back. Mr. Shippen wrote to Mr. Tilghman on January 24 that the express rider brought a letter from Mr. McKenzie, “which I could not bear to send by the bearer as he is a stranger to me, but I shall send it by our next post.” Mr. Shippen also said that he paid the express forty-five shillings for his three days’ service, and asked Mr. Tilghman to send the money to his son Edward.

Today, mail can be sent quickly via Fed Ex or by the United States Postal Service. If overnight express is not fast enough, we can now send and receive mail electronically, and it is transmitted instantly. What will the future bring?