Feb. 20: With the stroke of a pen — or is it a quill? — George Washington signs the Postal Service Act, creating a national postal service.
The U.S. Post Office Department born from the Act charged six cents (about $1.40 in today's coin) for letters delivered within a 30-mile radius, and 12.5 cents ($2.90) for letters traveling up to 150 miles.
(That's pretty steep, considering that a first-class stamp today costs only 42 cents, and you can ship Priority Mail anywhere in the country for $4.95.)
The practical effect of the Postal Service Act, however, was to transform the existing colonial postal service, streamlined by Benjamin Franklin during his stint as postmaster general, into a federal agency. Its main provision granted Congress the power to establish official mail routes throughout the young nation.
This piggybacked on work Franklin had already done when he surveyed and laid out postal routes from Maine to Florida — the old Post Road that basically evolved into U.S. Route 1.
Other provisions made it illegal for postal officials to open private mail and made it possible for newspapers to be included in mail delivery.
In 1792, the country had a population of 4 million. They were served by 75 regional post offices and 2,400 miles of postal roads.
This was a definite upgrade from mail delivery in the pre-revolutionary colonies, which, when it existed at all, was based on the British model. More often than not, individuals hired private couriers to get letters where they wanted them to go.
The Continental Congress, acting on Franklin's recommendation, created a competing postal service on the eve of hostilities with England. It proved a wise move: Gen. Washington relied heavily on this service to pass messages from the Army to the Congress throughout the war.
An interesting little sidebar: Franklin served as colonial postmaster general from 1753 to 1774, when he got sacked for opening and publishing the private correspondence of Thomas Hutchinson, the royal governor of Massachusetts. Always stirring things up, our rebellious Ben was.
Source: Various
