I had to mail a letter this morning. It is a need that I still have. Frequently. I can’t imagine what I will do if our current president gets his way and dissolves the United States Postal Service. Of course, he doesn’t have to mail letters. Someone does that for him, so he wouldn’t comprehend the importance of such a thing.
But if the USPS were no longer here, I’m not sure what I would have done today. I guess I would have had to drive to Richmond, Indiana, and send it UPS. Or arranged for UPS to pick it up at my house, for the cost of $6.80 just to get them here, and another charge for the shipping, on top of that. I guess if you have money to burn, you could afford to mail letters by the big brown trucks without a worry.
The current postal rate for a first-class letter is 55 cents in the U.S.
Our good post office has been around for a long time. In 1775, Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first postmaster of the USPS by the Continental Congress. Ben, good old Ben.
Franklin didn’t have any formal education. But he sure was smart as a whip. A stitch in time, and all. A penny saved. That guy was full of them. Benjamin Franklin was born on Milk Street, in Boston, Massachusetts. I bet some cows lived on that street with the Franklins. Baby Ben came into the world on January 17, 1706. He was one of seventeen children born to Josiah Franklin, and one of ten born by Josiah’s second wife, Abiah Folger. Like the coffee, but I don’t think there is a relation.
Anyway, back to the mail. In the early, early colonial times — like during the 1600s — not many colonists needed to send mail to each other. If they had much correspondence, it was more likely to be with someone in Britain. Can you imagine the dependability of those mail deliveries from across the Atlantic? They were sporadic and could take many months to arrive. And this was pre-post office, so mail was typically left at inns and taverns. I learned that Richard Fairbank’s Tavern, in what is now Boston, Massachusetts, was the official “place” for mail coming here from overseas at the time. So that is considered the first American post office. Long before USPS was established.
Which brings me back to Benjamin Franklin. I have to say, he was quite the guy. Franklin moved to Philadelphia in 1723 practically penniless. Probably with only those cute little buckled shoes on his feet. But. Over the next two decades, he became enormously wealthy as a print shop owner, land speculator, and publisher of the popular “Poor Richard’s Almanack.” Wealthy, wealthy. By 1748, he was rich enough to quit working in his print shop and become a “gentleman of leisure.” He was 42.
As a retired guy, Franklin’s spent his remaining 42 years studying science and devising inventions such as the lightning rod, bifocal glasses, swim fins, a urinary catheter, an improved heating stove, and more. It also gave him the freedom to devote himself to public service. Like handling letters.
In 1753, Benjamin Franklin, who had been postmaster of Philadelphia, became one of two joint postmasters general for the colonies. He made a whole, big, bunch of happy improvements to the mail system. New routes, faster delivery times, and a new rates chart which gave a “standardized” delivery cost. That penny saved thing again.
The Post Office Department issued its first postage stamps on July 1, 1847, long after Franklin had passed (April 17, 1790). One stamp, priced at five cents, depicted Benjamin Franklin. The other, a ten-cent stamp, pictured George Washington.
When you think about it, 55 cents isn’t really that much of an increase in 173 years. Anyway, I had to mail a letter this morning, which started all of this. I hope the US Post Office will be with us for well into the future. Just in case this sort of thing comes up again.
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“Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.”
― Benjamin Franklin
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“Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.”
― Benjamin Franklin
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“Instead of cursing the darkness, light a candle.”
― Ben Franklin
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