BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Before Ben Franklin revolutionized the delivery of mail in all Thirteen Colonies in North America, in the Southern colonies, postal duties often fell to slaves, who were responsible for carrying the mail from plantation to plantation. Failure to expedite the delivery of the mail cost the plantation owner a hogs head of tobacco under the local rules of the day.

In the northern colonies, most post offices doubled as taverns. Those taverns also doubled as inns (and who knows what else).

Responsibility for delivering the mail fell to merchants, friends or the kindness of strangers, until the localities decided that a more regular process was needed. And for most of the 1600’s, each colony had its own system to deliver the mail.

When Ben Franklin ran the Post Office for the City of Philadelphia, he set about modernizing the service across state lines. He surveyed land, built buildings, set up postal routes and created the first successful communication system between the states. Continue reading →