Russell Purchases Hockaday’s Mail Route
While the stage line was being gotten into operation Russell branched out in a new direction to assume another heavy liability. On May 11, 1859, he bought the contract of J. M.…
Agreement Between Russell and Dinsmore
The Overland Mail Company had the main contract for transporting mail to California, but no line over which to travel. The Russell, Majors & Waddell Company had two minor contracts and the only…
No Annulment for Butterfield
The breaking up of that company's line and the stopping of mail to California over it presented the government with as pretty a dilemma as one could hope to find. The Overland…
Annulment of Chorpenning’s Contract
On May 11, 1860, the postmaster general annulled George Chorpenning's contract for carrying the mail from Salt Lake City to the west coast, and awarded it to the Central Overland California Pike's Peak…
Butterfield’s Regular Service
Before service on this line began, a storm of protest over its length was raised in California and the East. In spite of complaints, however, Butterfield laid out his route, built stations,…
First Call for Mail to Oregon
The first agitation for mail service to the Pacific Coast was promoted by immigrants to Oregon. In March, 1847, a bill to provide this service, which included the building of five steamships…
Steamship Policy
In 1847, Congress authorized the secretary of the Navy to contract for additional steamship mail service. One route ran from New York to Charleston, Savannah, New Orleans, and Havana; another from Havana to…
Blacks Barred from Mail Service
Southern politicians increasingly feared that if enslaved people, some of whom were literate, had access to the mail, particularly newspapers, they might learn of the Haitians' successful rebellion against the French in 1791…
Post Offices on the Pacific Coast
California was desperate for fast, efficient mail. Miners wanted to correspond with the folks back home, perhaps on the new illustrated stationery that predated picture postcards. Businessmen needed to transfer bank drafts and…
Growth of California
California's white population climbed from about 2,00 in 1848 to 100,000 by 1858. The tiny village of San Francisco, which had 200 residents in 18461 became the official port of entry, and by…
Post Office as Government Representative
As America's frontier continually expanded, mail service played a major role in organizing the physical and social landscape, just as it had since colonial days back East. Washington, D.C., was a vague concept for pioneers,…
Stamps
The new stamps also made correspondence far more convenient. Previously, letters of one or more sheets had been folded up, sealed shut with wax or an adhesive wafer, addressed on the "cover"…
Rise in Personal Letter Writing
By the mid-nineteenth century, the post, long primarily a vehicle for newspapers, now also enabled average Americans to enjoy easy, back-and-forth personal correspondence for pennies, and they did so in rapidly accelerating numbers.…
First Stamps
ln 1847, a delighted America got its first stamps: tiny receipts that turn letters and parcels into official mail. (Some "postmaster provisionals" had appeared a few years before, but they could only…
Star Service
In 1845, they imposed a stricter, performance-based classification system on the railroads' compensation and also established the Star Route service to make carriers' contracts in remote areas more competitive. The work of getting the…