ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

A

POST OFFICE GROWTH.

BY JEREMIAH EVARTS GREENE, P. M.*

POST office was first established in Worcester November 15, 1775, with Isaiah Thomas, the founder and editor of the Massachusetts Spy, as postmaster.

Only two mails appear to have been received and three dispatched weekly. One was received from the west Tuesday evening and one dispatched to Fitchburg on Wednesday, and one was received from Boston and one dispatched westward on Friday. It seems probable that the carrier who took the mail to Fitchburg brought back mail from that place, but I have seen no mention of it. The roads of that time were tracks through the woods and fields, impassable for any but the strongest wheeled vehicles. Traveling was slow and difficult, and was mostly done on horseback, and for some years the mails were carried in that fashion. Not until 1783 was a stage or wagon line established between Boston and Hartford, making the trip in four days, passing through Worcester toward noon of the second day. Three years later passengers and the mail were carried from Boston to New York in four days in the summer; in winter the trip required seven days. With the improvement of roads and vehicles the rate of travel was steadily increased, until in 1831, it is said, the journey from Worces-ter to Boston could be made by stage in six hours. In 1836 twenty lines of stages made in all 122 arrivals and departures weekly at Worcester.

Up to this time the business of the post office steadily increased, though with little change in character or methods, except that the number of mails received and dispatched was much greater. The receipts of the office for its earlier years are not readily obtainable. For the year 1825 they were $713, scarcely more than the average daily receipts now. For the year 1836 they were $2,827. The receipts of one day during the past year have been more than half that sum.

The Boston & Worcester Railroad was opened for business in 1835, and mails as well as passengers were carried on its trains. At first *See sketch in Biographical Department.

[graphic][merged small]

three trains departed from each terminus daily in summer, and two daily in the winter season. The time of each run was between two and three hours. This frequency and speed of course greatly increased the business of the post office, and it was further increased when the Norwich & Worcester and the western roads were opened a few years later. But yet no marked change in the character or methods of postal business was made.. The postmaster's business was only to receive, assort and deliver at the post office the letters which arrived, and to dispatch to their destination those which were deposited at the post office for mailing. And so it continued until Worcester became a city, in 1848. Two novelties, however, came into use about this time. One was the postage stamp, which was first supplied to postmasters by the Post Office Department in 1847; the other was the envelope, which then began to be used, though stamped envelopes were not introduced until some years later.

The revenues of the office in 1848 I have failed to ascertain exactly, but they were not far from $15,000, or approximately one dollar for each inhabitant. In 1825, when the population was about 3,500, the receipts of the post office were $713, or twenty cents annually for each inhabitant. Now, with a population of more than 100,000, the post office receipts are somewhat more than two dollars annually for each inhabitant, so that the business of the post office increases much faster than the growth of the population in numbers, being stimulated by the improved postal facilities, and by the increasing activity in general business.

In these fifty years since Worcester became a city, five notable additions to the general postal system have been made, all tending either to extend its usefulness and convenience to the public by making the transmission of mails swifter or safer, or by affording a new kind of service. In 1863 the letter-carrier or free-delivery service was established. For some years before, the penny-post system, so called, had been in use, in which a few carriers were employed who derived their income from the payment of one cent for the delivery of each letter to those persons who had given notice at the post office of their wish to receive their mail in that way. The free-carrier delivery superseded the penny post, and the system has grown rapidly in importance and public favor. It was at first defended against those who objected to the great increase it caused in the expense of the postal service by asserting that it in large part, if not wholly, paid its way. This assertion was founded upon the fact that the law establishing the free-delivery service required that drop letters, or letters addressed to persons within the delivery of the post office where they were mailed, must be prepaid with a two-cent stamp at free-delivery offices, whereas in other offices a one-cent stamp

[graphic][merged small][ocr errors]

only was necessary.

But the system has long since needed no defense. About the same time, that is, in 1863, the Railway Mail Service had its beginnings. It has grown enormously, and has long been indispensable. Railway post-office cars are now in use on all the important lines of railroad, and the mails are handled in them by railway postoffice clerks much as they are in ordinary post offices.

The registry system provides additional security for valuable letters and parcels, and certainty of delivery or return, if undeliverable, of mail matter when this certainty is important to the sender.

The money order system was introduced in 1864, and its use is so common and extensive that almost everybody understands it. It is not, perhaps, quite so well known that money can be sent by this means with absolute safety, for if a money order is lost in transmission, or by the payee before he has presented it for payment, a duplicate order will be issued on application without additional expense.

The Special Delivery Service provides for the immediate delivery of every piece of mail matter intended for delivery in Worcester, whether received from another office through the mails or deposited in the city post office, provided it bears a ten-cent special delivery stamp. The area of delivery is so large, some letters having to be carried more than five miles, that the average time required to deliver each letter is somewhat greater than it would be if these letters were delivered from the stations, and the time reckoned from the arrival of the letter at the station. But as, in many cases, the letters would be held at the main office for an hour or two before the next regular dispatch to the station, the public is on the whole better served by making all these deliveries from the main office, though the reported time required for delivery is somewhat increased. The average time, however, does not exceed twenty minutes. The Special Delivery System was established in 1885. Each of these branches of the postal service has its distinct place and its clerks assigned to that duty in every city post office. Let us consider each in its order and see how the post office is equipped and managed. First, as the original and dispensable parts of the system are the mailing and delivery divisions. Isaiah Thomas, alone or through an assistant, had to do their work, or what there was of it, though he probably did not speak or think of it as in two divisions. The mailing division has nine clerks, one of them at Station A, under the charge of the superintendent of mails. They receive all letters brought in by carriers and collectors, or deposited directly in the office, and all other mail matter, papers, packages, etc., except those received by the Registry Division. They postmark the letters and sealed and special delivery packages; distribute them in the mailing cases, which have pigeon-holes, one for each post office to which five or more letters

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »